Your baby's development: 10-12 months

It hardly feels like any time at all since you were holding your newborn in your arms, and yet here you are, getting ready for their first birthday party! Although your baby is so much bigger now, their tummy is still pretty tiny – around 10 times smaller than yours – so every spoonful counts! Once they’ve got the hang of chewing, Cow & Gate's variety of new meals are a great way to help them get the right balance of vitamins and minerals they need at this stage, and for extra tips, check out our useful list of iron rich foods. We’ve got loads of articles and videos too about the next stage of weaning as well as advice on dealing with fussy eaters. If you have any other feeding questions, just give us a call!

Now your baby is becoming even more mobile and curious, their nutritional needs are changing as they need the extra goodness to keep them going throughout the day. However, as they have a smaller tummy than you, they need to eat little meals that are full of energy and nutrients, more often.
Although it can be quite messy, continue to encourage your baby to get stuck in during mealtimes! Drinking from a beaker, getting to grips with finger food, or having a go at spoon feeding are all great ways of developing your baby's co-ordination skills as well as their independent streak. And, as your baby starts to take pride in what they do, encouraging their efforts during feeding will help build self-confidence.

One of the most exciting things you’ll experience around 10 - 12 months is the sound of your baby’s first “real” words! They may not always be what you expect, nor what you’ve taught them!

You’ll probably have heard these words already. But now your baby starts to make the connection between the word and the object or person and says them with real meaning. Words you can expect to hear are names like ‘mumma’ and ‘dadda’, ‘ju-ju’ for juice and ‘wu-wu’ for dog!

With more teeth in place, your baby is now chewing food more effectively - breaking it down before it even reaches their tummy. Their digestive system is maturing too, with the oesophagus now working like yours, so those days of seeing meals twice are hopefully behind you! As their stomach continues to grow, your baby can start enjoying three main meals a day, filled with a variety of nutritious foods. It’s a big step forward in their weaning journey, helping them build healthy habits for life.

Your baby’s body is catching up with their head, and they’re gradually moving towards more adult-like proportions. As they become more mobile - crawling, cruising, and even taking those first wobbly steps - their bones are growing wider and stronger. Thankfully, baby bones are softer and more flexible than adult ones, making little tumbles less of a worry. Bone strength is partly down to genetics, but a nourishing diet rich in calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, zinc, and vitamins D and K plays a key role too. Supporting their bone development now helps set them up for a strong, active future.

When you think about how much your baby is learning at the moment, you get a bit of an idea about how exciting life must be for them. They’re absorbing all kinds of new things about the world every single day, and as they head towards toddlerhood, you’ll see more and more of their little personality shining through.

At the moment, your baby’s brain development is focused on 4 main areas:

• Coordination – your baby is gaining more control over their body, which is essential for everything that involves movement, like crawling and learning to walk, using a spoon and playing with their toys.
• Talking – that cute baby babble will soon start to sound more like real words. “Mama” and “dada” often come first, but some babies start with simple animal noises they’ve heard in songs, “baaa” being a common favourite!
• Emotions and social behaviour – babies are natural-born copycats and constantly watch others to learn how the world works. As they absorb people’s facial expressions, voices, words and actions, they’re learning important lessons about emotions, relationships and how to be more independent. All on a basic baby level, of course!
• Visual development – your baby’s vision is now as good as an adult’s. Their memory is becoming more advanced too, which is why they’re getting better at recognising people, objects, shapes and colours.

Everything your baby learns, whether it’s giggling and chatting, taking little wobbly steps or scribbling their first work of art, relies on healthy brain development. And that relies on good nutrition.

Giving your baby a wide variety of nutrients will help to support their brain development, with iron being one of the most important nutrients. A lack of it can leave your baby feeling tired and lacking in energy.

For such an essential nutrient, iron can be surprisingly hard for the body to absorb. The good news is there are plenty of baby-friendly iron-rich foods to choose from, making it easier to serve some up every day. Good sources include red meat, eggs, lentils and green leafy vegetables like broccoli and kale. Vitamin C helps the body absorb iron more easily, so it’s a good idea to serve up some fruit or diluted fruit juice whenever your baby is enjoying an iron-rich meal or snack.

Omega 3 fats are another key brain-building nutrient and are found in oily fish such as salmon and mackerel. Our homemade baby recipes include a variety of yummy ideas to help you include them in your baby’s menu.