Your Baby at 6months ???

According to Mumsnet www.mumsnet.com/ at 6 months your baby will have started mastering his body. No longer will he lie contentedly on his sheepskin rug, he'll want to sit up and keep an eye on you. Not only is he developing a few ideas of his own about what he'd like to do, but soon, he'll put them into practice.

His lovely, quite detailed babbling will make way for a serious combination of combined vowels and consonants. You may hear variations on gaa goo and ka and ma. It can be hard to disentangle baby speech and all parents really want to hear is a nice crisp mama or dada. Now is the time to stop calling his chubbykins or puffpot because he will respond to what he thinks is his name. He loves hearing voices and will turn round, swivelling his trunk to hear them. He can also begin to understand the emotional overtones of language. He will talk in varying pitch to his dolls and to himself in the mirror.

His eye and hand coordination is going full steam ahead. He will pat his image in the mirror and keep his eyes fixed on an object while he reaches for it. The clever boy (and this is someone who a few weeks ago didn't realise those hands he could see were his) will then grasp the object, cupping his chubby hand round it and securing it with his thumb. Everything goes straight into his mouth so he can explore it with his tongue and lips - so watch what objects are lying in baby range. As his hand control improves so his fingers will take over the business of exploration. He will also be able to bang things, like saucepan lids and will love doing so, particularly if he suspects you have a hangover.

He will now be able to roll from his stomach to back and from his back to stomach. He may bend his knees with his forearms on the floor in front and start to push off as though about to crawl. He may rock to and fro, wondering why he's not moving. He may surprise you and be an early crawler in which case you'd better baby proof your home sharpish, as he'll have an unnerving knack for finding the bleach. Some babies seem to have a lot of muscle tone and may stand supported by furniture for a few moments. He may also sit for a few moments, best done with cushions around him so his head doesn't fall back and make a horrible noise on the floor. He may also topple over in the middle as he reaches for things in front.

This is the sweetest of times when you can believe that your baby really really loves you. No longer does he smile indiscriminately, but he saves his best smiles for you. He will look at you lovingly, patting your breast or the bottle, or reach up to pat your face, sometimes more vigorously than is comfortable but you don't want to hurt his feelings. You can make him laugh and he will kick his legs frantically to show how pleased he is with you. Best of all he will hold his arms out to be picked up and adore being cuddled. It's like the first few weeks of a romance all over again. But your baby will also now show fear and occasional anger. He will start liking and disliking foods. He will also become more sociable and instead of blanking other babies like he used to, will now reach out to touch them.

He now realises that people and things continue to exist even though he can't see them. He also realises from playing, and making things happen repeatedly that "If I do this, then that happens." From being able to move one object from one hand to another he realises that his body has two parts that meet in the middle. These are big steps in baby psychology.

Banging things and producing repeatable noises is a good game, as are waving rattles and having mum blow raspberries on your stomach. He will also like different textures such as furry things, fur cones, and squashy things. He likes it if you kneel down beside him and try to crawl with him - maybe because it makes you look ridiculous. He likes you to tell him what games you are playing with him, as in "I am rolling the ball towards you".

He can see small objects from 15 cm or less up to 3 - 6 metres away. If he could voice a colour preference it would be for red and yellow.

He will have or will soon have some incisors - two central top and 2 central bottom ones. He will want to bite everything and dribble over everyone. It's worth starting to clean them, even just with a flannel, as soon as they appear.