The hands of a newborn tender us but also surprise us by the force they have when squeezing, this is called grip reflex. When we put an object or our finger in the baby's hand, he takes it and squeezes it with his little hand in such a way that we could even lift it up to his feet without letting go.
Although the funniest thing is that this same reflection is also in the feet, when they rub against any surface, the baby shrinks the toes as if he wanted to hold on to something. According to experts, this reflex is something inherited from our ancestors, when humans had large amounts of body hair, it served babies to cling to the mother's body in case of danger.
This reflex disappears in a short time and is replaced by a new type of behavior that is learned, that contains intention and that develops as the baby's brain matures, when it begins to acquire coordination, ability to grab and manipulate things, etc. Mastery of the hands in a baby requires learning and a continuous discovery that we can clearly see. During the first month we see how the baby keeps the closed fist almost all the time, the grip of the grip is the order of the day. During the second month, he still retains this reflex but with less rigor, the baby opens his little hands more often. In the third month a remarkable change begins, it holds without force an object that you put in your little hand and shakes it, although it still does not look at it.
In the fourth month he starts looking at his little hands, he puts them in his mouth and sucks them. The change begins to accentuate much more thanks to the maturation of his brain, already entered the fifth month, the baby begins to stretch his hands to try to touch an object, although it still costs him a little since he does not calculate the distances well. The change from the fifth to the sixth month is very significant, you can already take objects with one hand and look at them. During the seventh month he is able to take two objects at once, one in each hand thanks to the development of his sense of coordination and visual focus.
From this moment, the awareness that the baby has on his hands is very remarkable, during the eighth month, the baby learns to drop things and even drops the toys on purpose, this action is part of his learning related to the coordination. In the following months until the end of the year, he will take the toys to explore them, hit them to sound, start picking up small things, using the thumb and forefinger as if they were tweezers. If you give him a children's book, he will try to turn the pages, he will be able to mount a tower with the cubes of toys and he will throw us a ball with his hand.
Until this point, your child has experienced a great evolution thanks to continuous learning, numerous trials have paid off, are small and great advances that help him and allow him to continue evolving. Watching how a baby develops in all its aspects provides great satisfaction, its intellectual, physical and emotional evolution is guaranteed, because thanks to their hands, they have the world at their fingertips.
