The Early Years Foundation Stage: Setting the Standards for Learning, Development and Care for children from birth to five

• Sits alone without support with a straight back.
• Can lean forward when sitting.
• Can move from a sitting position to hands and knees (crawl position).
• Crawls, bottom shuffles or rolls continuously to move around.
• Pulls self up to standing but cannot lower self down again (falls backward with a bump).
• Supports whole weight on legs if holding on to support.
• Can rise to sitting position from lying down.
• Crawls on hands and knees or shuffles on bottom.
• Kneels up against furniture.
• Pulls self up to standing against furniture and can lower self back down again.
• Walks around furniture lifting one foot and stepping sideways (cruising).
• Walks with one or both hands held by adult.
• Stands by themselves for a few seconds.
• Takes first few steps: feet wide apart, uneven steps, arms raised for balance.
• Can stand up alone, without holding on to anything.
• Sits down from standing with a bump.
• Crawls upstairs.
• Comes downstairs backwards on knees (crawling).
• Sits and manipulates toys with hands.
• When sitting, can pick up a toy without losing balance.
• Bends to pick up a toy from the floor when standing up holding onto furniture.
• Throws toys or objects deliberately.
• Carries large toy, or several toys while walking.
• Pulls toy on string along behind while walking.

• The skills babies build up as they learn to crawl and then pull themselves up to a standing position from sitting. What motivates them to want to move?
• How babies use furniture and other objects to support their first steps and what encourages them to become more confident walkers.
• Examples of why children begin to carry things with them as they walk.
• How babies begin to explore stairs and what motivates them to want to go up or down.

• Babies love rough and tumble play, such as bouncing, rocking and swinging. Movement through space helps them establish balance and trunk control.
• When babies are lying on their tummies, encourage them to lift their heads and support their trunks on their elbows by talking to them or interesting them with a toy. Use a firm surface to give a good base to push against and support the movement effectively.
• Once babies can sit on your lap with minimal support, sit them on one knee while holding them with both hands around the hips and then lower down. Rock them gently from side to side to help them practise keeping their bodies straight. Do the same thing with them sitting along your thigh facing your other leg and rock them gently forwards and backwards. Gradually increase the size of the rock as their trunk control improves.
• Encourage babies to kick their legs by placing a sound-making toy at the base of their cot or under their legs.
• Many babies enjoy motion in an appropriate swing from the age of about six months.
• Put a few toys like sound balls on a mat with the babies. This encourages them to wriggle and move to pat the toys.
• To encourage rolling, place babies on their sides on a comfortable surface and encourage them to follow your voice, your face or a toy as it moves in the direction you want them to roll. Show them what you want them to do by gently rolling them so that they learn the pattern of movements required. Make sure they're helped and rewarded with a cuddle or the toy to play with. Repeat this with them lying on their back.
• Place babies in a sitting position on a firm surface, propped up with pillows. Show them how to support themselves using their hands and arms as props on the floor in front of them.
• Encourage babies to reach out for a toy or biscuit with one hand while sitting propped.
• Sit on the floor with a baby between your legs. Rock them gently from side to side (maybe singing a 'seesaw' song) and taking their hands to the floor to the side to show them how to save themselves.
• Begin to use action words to relate to body parts and actions. Say "Bend your legs" and "Push your arms". Say these words as you help babies use particular parts of their body, for example, when they're trying to crawl. With regular repetition, children begin to understand.
• Encourage children to begin to move around the room, rolling, bottom shuffling or commando crawling.
• To help with crawling, put babies into a crawling position so that their arms are straight and legs bent. Hold them round the middle and gently rock them from side to side and front to back to give the experience of the movement required and to develop balance.
• Once babies can support their weight on their arms and knees in a crawling position, encourage them to reach out with one hand and then the other. It takes most children several weeks from weight-bearing to mobility. Be aware that some children skip the crawling stage completely!
• Try placing children's legs in a crawling position and put your hands against the bottom of their feet. Their reaction will be to push against your hands and this will result in movement.

Feeding:

• Grasps finger foods and brings them to mouth.
• Opens mouth for spoon.
• Accepts range of tastes.
• Accepts range of consistency (runny, thick, paste) and range of texture (smooth purée, chopped food, small soft lumps).
• Starts to show own food preferences.
• Tries to grasp spoon when being fed.
• Holds own bottle or sipper cup.
• Drinks from feeder cup with help and later drinks from feeder cup independently.
• Attempts to use spoon: can guide towards mouth but food often falls off; moves on, with time, to try to use spoon to feed self.
• Bites finger foods.
• Eats lumps (for example, in yoghurt or semi-puréed food).
• Chews lumpy food.

Sleeping:

• Only having one nap during the day.

Washing:

• Enjoys splashing water when being washed.
• Tolerates face and hair washing with appropriate soap and shampoo.
• Tolerates gum stimulation and teeth cleaning routines as teeth emerge and later, cooperates with teeth brushing.
• Plays with a range of bath toys.
• Begins to participate in bathing, offers or lifts body part ready for washing and later uses sponge on arms and legs.
• Cooperates with drying hands.

Toileting:

• Actively cooperates with nappy changing (lies still, helps hold legs up).
• Starts to communicate urination, bowel movement.

Feeding:

• How babies begin to open their mouths to take food from a spoon.
• The range of food (consider textures and tastes) that a baby accepts.
• How babies begin to grasp finger foods and bring them to their mouths.
• How babies learn to use a spoon and sipper cup to feed themselves.

Sleeping:

• How often babies need a nap during the day and how this changes over time.

Washing:

• How babies cooperate and participate when being washed.

Toileting:

• How babies cooperate when their nappy is being changed.

Feeding:

• Introduce small amounts of food with a new taste or texture and only increase the amount of food as a child becomes familiar with it.
• Try introducing finger foods by putting flavoured foods such as cream cheese or jam on to babies' fingers. At this stage, everything is taken to the mouth for exploration, so if it tastes good, they'll soon get the message and try other things. Finger foods which dissolve without much chewing can be introduced once solids are established.
• Let babies watch you as you prepare food so that they begin to associate smells, sounds and sights with the food you give them.
• Let babies play with safe kitchen equipment such as pans and spoons.
• When introducing new textures, start with foods you know a child likes. Leave some soft lumps in the food when you mash or purée it or add a few crumbs of food that will absorb the familiar flavour, such as soft grains of rice.
• Name the meals that you have at different points in the day, for example 'lunch' or 'tea' just before you start them.
• Once babies can use a high chair, include them in setting mealtimes. You may need to feed them first, but you can give them some finger foods on their tray so that they're involved in eating at the same time as everyone else. Let them hold a spare spoon while everyone else is eating.
• Encourage as much independence using a bottle as possible. You may, however, need to check the angle to prevent too much air being taken in.

Washing:

• Encourage cooperation in washing hands and faces at various points of the day, such as washing hands before meals and washing faces after eating.
• Give children a cloth to hold and encourage them to use it while you talk about what you're doing.

Changing nappies:

• When changing nappies, tell children when they've passed water or had a bowel motion so that by the time you're toilet training they'll know what you're asking them to do. Use simple words that everyone in your setting is comfortable with.

• Picks up things between thumb and fingers in an immature pincer grasp.
• Stretches out with one hand to grasp toy if offered.
• Looks at and pokes small objects such as crumbs with index finger.
• Later, learns to pick up small objects easily between thumb and index finger (pincer grasp).
• Can release toy from grasp by dropping or pressing against a firm surface, but cannot yet place down deliberately.
• Holds an object in each hand and brings them together in the middle, for example, holds two blocks and bangs them together.
• Repeats actions to explore object properties, for example, sound of rattle.
• Uses index finger to point at objects.
• Picks up larger objects such as a teddy or a ball.
• Drops toys or objects deliberately.
• Puts toys or objects into a container.
• Takes toys or objects out of a container.
• Helps turn pages in a book.
• Holds pen or crayon using a palmar grasp and begins to scribble.
• Removes pieces from inset puzzle and large pegs from pegboard.
• Builds tower of two blocks.
• Turns over container to tip out contents.
• Drops blocks through large round hole in a posting box.

• How young babies begin to release toys from their grasp and drop things.
• How babies play with containers and begin to put one thing inside another.
• How babies explore small objects, such as crumbs.

• Help babies to find a toy they are playing with when it slips out of their hand on a surface.
• Partly cover a toy with a cloth and help babies to pull off the cloth and find the toy underneath.
• Show babies how to knock two toys or objects together to make a banging sound, for example, two bricks.
• Put noise-making objects such as rattles in a metal container and shake the tin. This will motivate children to explore inside and remove the objects.
• Offer babies a box with objects of different sizes, textures and shapes. This will encourage them to reach inside and pull something out to use or play with.
• Offer toys with dials, knobs and switches to develop different hand movements, like pushing, pulling, turning and pressing.
• Offer a second object when babies are already holding one to encourage them to pass it to the other hand or to hold an object in each hand. Later, they may put the first object down.
• Use toys with a push button to encourage use of one finger at a time and pushing or poking with the index finger.
• When children start to practise releasing or throwing objects, show them where an object has fallen or attract their visual attention to it so that they learn where it has dropped.
• Show children how cause and effect toys work. These toys might, for example, require you to pull a string to make something happen or open a box to make the music start.
• Help children to take a single object out of a small container, such as a small rattle inside a toy saucepan.
• Show children how to use one object on another and to explore toys with two parts that pull apart. This might include a small container with a lid or construction blocks that click together.
• Introduce flexible cloth or plastic books with textures or flaps. Encourage children to turn pages after each page has been explored.
• As children begin to deliberately throw objects away, try to catch them and quickly give them back. Develop this into a 'give and take' game. Where toys or objects give an auditory or visual reward, for example, dropping a noisy toy into a shiny tin, develop games and ask "Where's it gone?".