11 Developmental Milestones of a 3 Month Old Baby

The third month of your baby's life promises even better improvement and new developmental changes. At this time, it is essential to assist your child with their emotional, intellectual, and physical development. Learn a few key aspects of three month old development, along with some tips on safely interacting with and caring for your infant.

Read on to find out how to make your baby flourish during this exciting stage and how to further promote their current development by monitoring the milestones for a three month old.

Around three months, babies focus on surroundings and people and play with things with intention. Socially, the children smile when they see familiar faces, hear familiar sounds, and scratch and shake as if talking back in gurgles and coos. Communication is evident; babies begin to vocalise and move about, making different sounds and responding to voices.

In terms of physical abilities, babies can support their heads up at three months and may start to push up while on their front, thus engaging their neck and shoulder muscles. Since they are three months old, visually tracking moving items and responding to people and toys they know is demonstrated to them.

Movement Milestones for a 3 Month Old:

• Head Control: When upright and supported, the head can be held uniformly in an upright position together with neck gain during tummy time.
• Pushing Up: Employs arms to lift the head and chest during tummy time while elevating oneself on the forearms.
• Arm and Leg Movements: Waves legs and arms more vigorously, often hitting at toys or reaching for things in their surroundings.
• Grasping Objects: Begins to open hands more and hold objects, though the grip may still be reflexive as earlier. 
• Kicking: Kicking the legs energetically while lying on the back. Helps babies use their legs to explore or get attention.
• Turning Head: They can now turn their head from side to side, particularly when one turns to these sounds or sights.

Visual Milestones:

A three month old will not have perfect visual attention or focus. However, here are a few things to be expected:

• Tracking Objects: Able to follow the movement of objects or people either with their eyes or their heads, especially when they move slowly. 
• Focus on Faces: Actively seeks human faces, especially that of a primary caregiver, and is likely to pay close attention to the caregiver’s face.
• Colour Perception: The child can identify some colours and hues and begins to respond to brightly coloured and highly contrasting objects.
• Hand-Eye Coordination: Starts reaching for and batting at objects, practising early hand-eye coordination.

Hearing Milestones:

The hearing milestones of a three month old baby can be determined by the following points below:

• Responding to Voices: Hears a familiar voice and turns their head towards it as if they know the person, e.g., a parent or a primary caregiver.
• Sound Localisation: Begins to make attempts to locate the point of origin of certain sounds, responding either by moving their head or eyes in that direction.
• Vocal Exploration: Makes cooing sounds and may start experimenting with new vocal tones and pitches.
• Reaction to Sudden Sounds: Startles or shows a response to unexpected loud noises, like a door slamming or a dog barking.

Smell Milestones:

Common smell milestones for a 3 month old are as follows:

• Recognising Familiar Scents: At this stage, babies can feel familiar smells such as their mother’s, breast milk, and caregivers’ clothing and may be calmed by it.
• Response to Pleasant Scents: Babies may show increased calmness or smiles in response to pleasant scents, like those from favourite foods or familiar environments.
• Distinguishing Unpleasant Scents: Infants can also react negatively to unpleasant smells by frowning or turning away, indicating their growing sensory awareness.

Touch Milestones:

Common touch milestones for a 3 month old are as follows:

• Exploring Through Touch: The child begins to feel with the hands, reaching out to touch the different textures, like soft toys or blankets.
• Soothing Through Touch: When gently stroked or held, they also tend to calm down and fall asleep, which indicates that stimuli from touch are not irritating.
• Developing Tactile Awareness: The child will start to bring and grasp and finger rather into their month, suggesting they explore their hands more.

3 Month Old Baby Sleeping Patterns:

• Longer Night Sleep: Their sleep patterns change, with many babies starting to sleep for a stretch of 5-6 hours within a night, resting only for shorter feeding breaks. 
• Shorter Daytime Naps: Most babies within this age bracket average between three to four naps during the day, ranging from thirty minutes to two hours.
• Establishing Sleep Routines: Caregivers can start establishing a bedtime routine as babies become more responsive to cues like dim lighting and gentle rocking.
• Increased Awareness During Waking Hours: They begin to be more active within the day and stay up longer as they learn to understand the night and day system.

Feeding Milestones for a 3 Month Old:

• Breast Milk or Formula: The infant remains on breastfeeding or formula exclusively for all nourishment and has about 720 to 960 ml daily in a few feeding sessions.
• Improved Feeding Patterns: Feeding sessions become easier to predict as babies start having fewer and lengthier feeding sessions.
• Hunger Cues: Shows more signs of hunger, such as sucking one's fingers, rooting, or fidgeting when hungry.
• Fullness Cues: Shows signs of fullness, such as turning away from the breast or bottle or slowing down sucking. They can sense hunger and fullness better now.
• Increased Sucking Efficiency: Sucking action becomes stronger and more coordinated, allowing babies to eat better during feeding.

Cognitive Milestones for a 3 Month Old:

• Increased Curiosity: Infants begin looking at the people and objects around them, increasing their interest and focusing on their surroundings.
• Tracking Moving Objects: They begin to track objects or people with their eyes as they move across their field of vision.
• Early Problem-Solving: They might try out simple action-reaction scenarios, such as hitting a toy to have it move.
• Recognising Familiar Faces: They can identify their parents or caregivers and usually react positively by smiling or cooing when such familiar faces are seen.
• Attention Span Growth: Displays ability to look at targeted objects and/or people for extended periods, though short in attention span.

Social Milestones for a 3 Month Old:

• Social Smiles: Babies smile in response to social interaction, especially when seeing familiar faces.
• Vocal Interaction: Directed cooing or making some simple sounds to gain caregivers’ attention, indicating readiness for a social interaction.
• Preference for People: They show emotion and prefer familiar faces over strangers. They can respond excitingly when known faces are brought closer.
• Mimicking Facial Expressions: Mimicking simple facial expressions like smiling or sticking out their tongue.

What to Expect:

• Cooing Sounds: The child starts to coo using vowel sounds such as ‘ooh’ and ‘aah,’ leading to babbling later.
• Responding to Speech: Infants tend to reciprocate by smiling or cooing when addressed; this illustrates an intention to communicate.
• Early Vocal Play: The infant begins to ‘play’ with their voices in terms of pitch, volume, and tone, even though they do not say any specific words yet.

Fine Motor Milestones for a 3 Month Old:

• Grasping Reflex: The infants are still in the stage of strong grasp reflex and may grab onto toys or fingers briefly.
• Hand Exploration: They begin to put their hands in their mouths and look at their hands, which is the start of hand-eye coordination.
• Swatting at Objects: As infants develop, they also begin to swat or bat purposefully at objects above them instead of just reaching their hands.
• Opening and Closing Hands: Babies start practising moving their hands and soon afterwards begin to open and close their hands.

1. Tummy Time

2. Face-to-Face Play

3. Grasp and Reach

4. Mirror Play

5. Gentle Music and Sounds

6. Sensory Play

7. Bicycle Legs

8. Tracking Objects

9. Sing-Along

10. Supported Sitting

1. Provide Visual Stimulation

2. Engage in Conversation

3. Introduce Grasping Opportunities

4. Promote Social Interaction

At 3 months old, It’s important to keep monitoring the child's developmental milestones and well-being at this stage. If issues arise, such as key milestones not being met by the baby, they should seek the attention of their paediatrician.

• If your baby doesn't smile at people, makes no sounds, watches moving objects with their eyes, or does not respond to loud noises, meet the paediatrician.
• If your baby loses previous skills, like holding their head up and responding to familiar voices, it’s essential to talk to your doctor.
• A consultation is necessary if there is a problem breastfeeding your baby, they are not gaining weight appropriately, or they appear less active.
• If there are sleeping disturbances, e.g., inability to sleep or sleeping at odd hours of the day, a paediatrician can advise how to deal with forming sleeping habits.