Dr. Chheda – When babies are first born, they’re born with their hands fisted. At 2 months of age, they start opening up that fist, relaxing it. At 4 months, they start looking at their hand and oh, this is kind of interesting. I wonder what it tastes like? And they might gag themselves. If there’s something in their hand, they’re gonna try to wanna put that in their mouth as well too, but they don’t quite know where their mouth is with an object. So they might hit themselves all over the place until they finally get into their mouth.

At 6 months of age, they will have a–they will actually reach for something and put it directly into their mouth.

At 9 months of age, they will start picking up the smallest little piece, garbage on the floor with their finger in their thumb. That’s a normal reflex and whether they look at it or whether they put it in their mouth, hmm that’s on them.

But that’s hand development in the first year of life.