11 Developmental Milestones of a 2 Month Old Baby

The second month of your baby's life is an exciting time that includes important changes and events. At this stage, your baby is rapidly growing both physically and emotionally, and keeping up with these early changes is critical to understanding how to help your baby develop properly and meet future developmental steps.

Let’s look at tips so that you can track the essential developmental milestones of a two-month-old, learn exciting things for your baby, and understand safe approaches. Read on to learn about these critical earlier stages in the baby's growth.

By two months, babies show significant changes in growth, both physically, emotionally, and cognitively. They actively engage with the environment, including people familiar to them. Similarly, voices and gurgles fascinate them instead as a phase of communicative attempts.

You can also notice physical improvements in head control and body coordination of two-month-old infants, especially with the use of the stomach. Cognitively, they start following objects as though looking towards them and responding to known persons. Infants have begun to make sounds, including cooing, as a step forward to speech and verbalisation.

Movement Milestones for a 2 Month Old:

• Head Control: During tummy time, the child lifts their head and manages to maintain it when held in a vertical position.
• Arm and Leg Movements: Moves arms and legs with a more synchronised action instead of a jerky action, but with less coordination.
• Tummy Time Progress: They can raise when on their stomach, facilitating upper-body muscle strengthening.
• Grasping Reflex: It still retains a strong grasp reflex, making it easy for babies to hold on to anything from fingers to toys for a few seconds.
• Stretching and Kicking: They stretch and kick often while lying on their backs, which assists in building leg muscles for subsequent actions.

Visual Milestones:

Infants this age develop a considerable amount visually and can track and focus on objects more efficiently.

• Tracking Objects: At that time, the baby will start to track moving objects visually, for example, faces and brightly colourful toys, and will not look at the ceiling all the time.
• Focusing: A baby can look at an object very close up, particularly one that is not more than a foot away.
• Recognising Faces: Begins recognising familiar faces, reacting with alertness and attention to those.
• Increased Awareness: Shows curiosity and focuses on objects in their immediate surroundings, such as ceiling fans or colourful hanging mobiles.

Hearing Milestones:

Babies this age also tend to be more responsive to sounds, good and bad. Here are some of the significant auditory milestones:

• Responding to Voices: Shows signs of recognising familiar voices and may turn toward the sound of their parents and caregivers.
• Startle Reflex: Struggling at loud or unknown noises but may calm quickly when hearing soothing, familiar sounds.
• Cooing: Gurgling sounds advance to more complicated forms, as when babies produce these sounds, they are thinking.
• Sound Localisation: Starts showing the ability to identify the general direction of sounds, moving their head slightly towards them.

Smell Milestones:

The 2 month old begins recognising and associating scents. Here are the critical nasal developments of this month:

• Familiar Scents: Babies can recognise their caregiver’s scent, finding comfort in their presence and often calming down when held close.
• Sensitivity to New Smells: They become more aware of new scents in their environment, although their reactions are subtle.

Touch Milestones:

Infants during this period extensively explore through textures using their hands and mouth. Here are some common touch milestones:

• Exploring Textures: Babies start to explore different textures with their hands, though grasping is still reflexive. They may hold onto soft blankets or their caregiver’s fingers.
• Calming Through Touch: Finds comfort in gentle touches, like stroking or swaddling, which helps regulate emotions and provides a sense of security.
• Increased Sensitivity: Shows sensitivity to varying temperatures and textures on their skin, reacting to warmth and cold by moving or facial expressions.

2 Month Old Baby Sleeping Patterns:

• Longer Sleep at Night: Starts sleeping a bit longer, deeper and more fulfilling, but not all through the night, usually for around 4 to 6 hours at a time.
• More Consistent Napping: Takes several naps daily, each lasting 1-2 hours. Sleep during the day is still essential for development.
• Establishing a Sleep Routine: Begins adjusting to a more predictable sleep-wake cycle with periods of wakefulness during the day and sleep at night.
• Sleep Cycles: Sleeps in cycles, with deep and lighter sleep phases. This can be occasional twitching or movements during sleep.

Feeding Milestones for a 2 Month Old:

• Increased Appetite: Infants may feed more often or take in more milk per feeding, going through ‘growth spurts whereby infants get hungrier and may need more food.
• Feeding Duration: 20-40 minutes is the average duration of an individual feed, but there are exceptions. Most babies require feeding after every 2-3 hours.
• Establishing Feeding Routines: Parents may start feeding more regularly, and the baby may utilise correct feeding cues such as putting hands in the mouth.
• Satiety Cues: Begins refusal to suck at the breast/bottle and opposes further feeding by positively mouthing or slowing down the sucking motion.

What to Feed:

During this age, you should be careful with what you feed your infant as it can deeply affect them. Here’s a breakdown of it:

• Breast Milk: Breast milk is still the dominant nutrition, providing all important antibodies, nutrients, and flap fluid.
• Formula: Infants of this age must get well nourishment, and if breastfeeding is not feasible, formula should be able to provide all the nutrients necessary.
• No Solids Yet: Avoid giving any solid food until they are 4 - 6 months old. Hence, they only need breast milk or formula for this age.

Avoid overfeeding. Watch for signs of satiation and avoid pushing the baby to feed more than it needs.

Cognitive Milestones for a 2 Month Old:

• Exploring Objects: Concentrates on external sound and visual stimuli, and although the grasping reflex is still in action, this ability is still more purposeful.
• Attention span: Able to study one object or face for a concise minute or more, proving the early sentiments awakened in this child.
• Recognising Faces: The child becomes much more aware of other people’s faces, can identify some of them, and even gazes at them encouragingly.
• Early Cause and Effect: Children may show some initial understanding of cause and effect, such as reacting to a parent’s voice or smile.
• Sensory Exploration: They employ their senses to investigate the environment and take an interest in the different textures and sounds.

Social Milestones for a 2 Month Old:

• Social Smiles: Infants at this age can smile back when someone else smiles at them. The start may lead to engagement/interaction with other people.
• Recognising Caregivers: The child can now show preferences, especially towards caregivers’ faces, and become active during these interactions.
• Responding to Voices: They now respond to voices by turning toward them or showing recognition.
• Social Cues: The infant displays the same tendency of trying to engage the caregivers, eventually exhibiting eye contact and being in the early stages of cooing or talking.

What to Expect:

• Vocalisations: Begins making cooing sounds and experimenting with different vocalisations, such as “oo” or “ah.”
• Early Cooing: They will begin cooing and possibly do early types of babbling, but they will still need to have meaningful words.
• Responding to Sounds: They will be more observant of familiar sounds or voices, turning their heads in that direction.
• Listening and Reacting: At this stage, they are expected to move their body or legs in response to a change of tone in voice or shift of pitch.

These early sounds and reactions are the basis for later language development and indicate growing communication skills.

Fine Motor Milestones for a 2 Month Old:

• Grasp Reflex: The strong grasp reflex persists. When one places an object in the palm, the infant grasps or holds on to the object.
• Visual Tracking: Their hand-eye coordination has improved, as they can better track moving things with their eyes.
• Hand Movements: The infant begins to move their hands more slowly from one side to the other, but these movements are still quite jerky and reflexive.
• Increased Reach: The infant starts to look for and reach for objects within his or her visual field; these understandings of manipulating objects are still developing.

1. Tummy Time

2. Gentle Play with Soft Toys

3. Face-to-Face Interaction

4. Listening to Soft Music or Singing

5. Reading Simple Books

6. Exploring Different Textures

7. Mirrors

8. High Contrast Toys

9. Gentle Rocking or Swaying

A slight rock or swaying motion when holding a baby in a carrier is a soothing activity. Such a motion strengthens the baby's sense of balance and orientation, while promoting comfort and relaxation.

These activities help your baby understand the world around them and thereby foster their growth, laying the groundwork for later milestones.

1. Providing Sensory Stimulation

2. Talking and Reading to Them

3. Encouraging Movement

4. Introducing Gentle Stimulation

5. Facilitating Social Interaction

6. Offering Safe, Comforting Environments

7. Encouraging Sensory Exploration

8. Supporting Sleep Patterns

9. Fostering Emotional Security

It is advisable to contact the paediatrician if there is any issue with the health assessment and development of the 2 month old infant. Here are some conditions under which the healthcare provider consultations are done:

• If your baby does not react to your voice, tense their arms/ limbs towards you, try to make eye contact, or if they are not starting to follow objects in front of them.
• If your baby has lost skills, like lifting their head during tummy time or making cooing sounds, it’s essential to address this with your paediatrician.
• In case you have problems with the proper nourishment of the baby – be it latching on or the weight gain – do it properly, or there are other signs of reluctance to eat.
• Chronic sleep problems for newborns include the inability to fall asleep, frequent waking up in the middle of the night, and difficulty maintaining a consistent sleep routine.
• An extremely fussy baby with a hard tummy who does not pass stool or seems uncomfortable requires that you see your doctor to rule out an infection.
• Talking to your paediatrician can provide support if you feel overwhelmed, anxious, or have concerns about your baby’s overall well-being at any time.