INTRODUCTION

Translated by Mélanie Poulain

Child development essentially depends on neurological maturation, affective environment, stimulations received and own discoveries.

Thus, parents attention and presence are essential regarding affective environment. In addition to physical response, parents words expressed with regards to baby feelings and requests (mostly communicated through screams and cries) are important to make baby mind and body state feeling secure. This allows to give a meaning and a verbal response to his/her body language, as long as the baby doesn’t have oral language. Child own development and stimulations received must match. It’s not recommended to suggest activities and learnings which don’t match with what the child is seeking or exploring, nor to overstimulate.

We have wished to present you the major development milestones of a child under 3 years old, knowing that it is unique to each child. Indeed, development can show progression, stability and also regression, which is not always related to troubles or retardation. Thus, here we choose to refer to age brackets for baby skills/development milestones to describe some psychomotor capabilities. We also give you advises allowing to stimulate your child in order to favor good psychomotor development.