By the time your baby is eight-months old, she will most likely already know how to crawl forwards and backwards; sometimes she will even hold an object while crawling. To encourage the transportation of objects while crawling you can give your child stuffed toys that will easily squish when they are crawling. This will help protect fingers from getting smashed. You can also provide them with hand-held items, such as rattles or keys that are easy to carry around
Another toy that your baby will find engaging is musical toys. The reason that these toys are going to be so much is because your baby now understands that her actions are going to cause some kind of reaction. When you provide her with musical toys, your baby will turn knobs or pull strings just to see what is going to happen when she does something. Your baby at this age loves to explore how things work, and the toys will give your baby a chance to figure things out and take control. Your baby can also try out variations and building thinking skills as she plays.
Playing with musical toys is also beneficial to babies at this age because they are beginning to articulate sounds. These toys will help to build your baby’s receptive language, so you want to expose them to as many words as possible. The more words that your baby hears the more words they are going to become familiar with, which will increase their chances of being able to make sense of things. You can reinforce these skills by playing with your baby and saying the names of colors, shapes, or anything else that you say or just making conversation with your child.
Just like at seven-months old, entertainment centers that encourage your baby to stand and cruise are going to play a huge part in their development. These toys are going to be toys that turn from walkers to wagons or tables that children can pull themselves up to. These two are also going to help your child as they learn how to cruise along things because these toys are going to develop your baby’s confidence, but they are also going to help strengthen your baby’s muscles that they will be using for walking.
Sorting and building toys at this age are going to be beneficial for your baby because they will help encourage your child to switch items from one hand to another. Once they have mastered that skill, your baby will being working on developing other skills, such as sorting and building. To help your baby master sorting objects you will need to put away all but one shape and allow them to work on getting the shape inside the right hole. Once they have gotten that one down, you can move onto another shape, such as a square. When they have figured out the first two shapes try putting them together to challenge your baby even further.
Toys with dials, levers, and buttons are great for eight-month olds because of how much babies love to explore and because they finally understand that their actions are going to cause something to happen. If needed, you can demonstrate all of the fun actions that the toy has, but you can also sit back and let your baby explore on their own. These toys are great for babies because they will hold their attention for a while, but they will also help your baby improve their fine motor skills. These types of toys require babies to turn keys, press buttons, turn dials, and other things that require the use of their fingers.