1 Year Review
It may have been a long time since you saw a health visitor, but between 9-12 months your child should get their one year check. Your child will have made a lot of progress since the last visit. Take the time to think how far you and your child have come. For this contact you'll get a questionnaire which will look at what your child can do.
Your child may now be weight bearing and sitting up, making sounds like "ga-ga" and "ba-ba". You may notice your child is able to pick up smaller things now, like little pieces of string and small toys. You may see your child is now able to pass a toy from hand to hand and bang it down to make noises. They can probably co-ordinate their hands to get food and other items to their mouth.
The questionnaire will ask if you have any worries about your child's health or behaviour you can discuss this with your health visitor.
Other changes will have happened in the last 6 months; your child has begun to eat family foods, they may drink water or milk from sippy cups. As your child gets nearer to one year old, they can have full-fat cows milk in their food and once they are one, they can have full-fat cows milk instead of formula.
Information regarding local groups and drop ins, information regarding nursery
weigh and measure.
- Parental Wellbeing
- baby's teeth
- encourage your child's development
- Dummy's
- Vitamins
- Ages and Stages questionnaire
- Safety
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At this visit we can talk about how you, the parent is getting on and if you need any extra support.
We can discuss how parenting together is going and if we can support with any issues.
If you smoke and wish to be referred to Smoking Cessation, we can assist with this.
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We recommend once children's baby teeth start coming through, you brush them. It's advised you register your child with a dentist from now. You can find out when to expect teeth to come through, tips on teething and choosing toothpaste here*
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To encourage their coordination skills, let your baby feed themselves some finger foods. Give them a spoon with some food on, to help them learn how to get the food to their mouth.
To build up their confidence with standing; you can put toys on the sofa and lean your child against the sofa to practise standing.
Get your baby to fill up cups, bowls, pans etc with little balls or bricks. Emphasise "in" and "out" as they put them in. Get a big box for them to crawl in and out of, talk to them asking if they are "going in?" or "coming out?" saying "hello" and "bye" as they come and go. You can do this as they walk in and out of the room. *link to communication*
If your child is playing with sounds, like saying “ga” this may turn into “gaga”. You could try and encourage them to try different sounds by doing new sounds and leaving time for baby to repeat it.
Give your child a sturdy mirror or a safe little handheld mirror so to look at themselves. They can poke it and explore their reflection.
Play a game of rolling the ball back and forwards to one another.
Your child will like exploring different sounds and items, so give them utensils and pots and pans to explore. You could also try and make a treasure basket*.
Try offering you child a large sheet of paper and crayons to hold. You could also paint with water or chalks on a pavement.
Offer choices, do you want the red car or blue ball, do you want the milk or water and encourage your child to pick one
Role play with toys and teddies, the “teddy is going to bed” “the boy is going to the shops and picking his dinner” eventually your child may want to join in and do some actions too if you encourage them.
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It is recommended that if you have given your child a dummy, to discourage it by the time they are a year old. This is becuase it can hinder speech and language development and can affect how the teeth grow.
Some tips for stopping dummy use:
Dummy's can offer comfort, so don't start removing if your child is ill or going through a transition like starting nursery.
If your child is upset, try and work out why they are upset, rather than just using the dummy to pacify them.
Try and save the dummy for just bedtimes and when in communal areas to ensure their mouth is free to talk and play with sounds. If your child does have their dummy in and tries to talk to you, ask them to take it out to speak.
You could try and switch the dummy for another item, such as a comfort toy or blanket
To get rid of the dummy you could leave it for the "dummy fairy" or offer to swap it for something they want
Once you do stop using the dummy, you should follow through. Check you have gotten rid of all the dummy's in the house and not be tempted to give it back.
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If your child is having less than 500ml of formula milk each day we recommend giving your child vitamin supplements. This is because in formula there is added vitamins in it, but once if your child is not getting that then this will top them up.
Healthy Start vitamins
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This may be the first time you've received an Ages and Stages Questionnaire. This is a tool used by our staff to see how your child is doing in 5 areas of development. These are:
Communication - (How they talk to you and let you know what they want)
Gross motor skills - (How they crawl or walk)
Fine motor skills - (How they use their fingers and hands to hold or move things)
Problem Solving - (How they work things out)
Personal Social - (How they play and understand you)
You just tick the box beside the question to say if they can do this all the time, some of the time or haven't started doing this yet. All children are different so don't worry if they have not started doing everything on the form - that's normal.
If you need any help filling in the form please call 0300 300 0123 and one of our Just One Number staff will be happy to help you.
You then send the form back to us and our Healthy Child Programme team will look at it. If there are any things you are worried about or your child is not doing lots of things someone will phone you so you can talk about this and we can make an appointment to see you and your child if we need to.
If you don't have any worries we will send you another form when you child is around 2 and a half for you to fill in. (See 2.5 year review).
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As your child is starting to get bigger and more active you may be thinking about safety more.
You may want to think about risk assessing your home, looking for dangers. Stair gates can be used in any doorway, not just stairs. There may be cupboard's you want to prevent your child from accessing. They may now be able to reach oven, drawers, windows, door handles. Make sure you turn hot pans on the hobs so the handle is inwards, so your child cannot grab them. Look at your house from your child's level and think of what they can access or bang into.
Just because your child is gaining in gross motor skills, never leave them alone in the bath, not even for a few seconds.
