Fine Motor Skills

Once your baby realizes just how useful his little fingers and hands are, he’ll start to reach out and grab just about anything he can. And as your child's awareness of the world — and all the objects and people in it — grows, his interest in touching and holding them will, too.

These newfound abilities are part of your baby’s growing collection of fine motor skills, and it’s the development of these finger motions that’ll help him make exciting discoveries about the textures, toys and foods around him.

Here’s what to know about fine motor skills, including when they develop and how to help your little one cultivate his abilities. 

What are fine motor skills?

Fine motor skills are movements that use the small muscles in the body — in infants, for example, that includes the coordinated motions of touching two fingers together, raking bits of food, grasping, grabbing and making a pincer with a finger and thumb.

Some fine motor skills in older babies include clapping, waving, transferring small items from one hand to the other and banging toys together. Toddlers can perform still more complicated feats with their hands and fingers, placing objects in a container, building a two-block tower and turning the pages of a thick board book.

What’s the difference between fine and gross motor skills?

Fine motor skills involve the small muscles in the fingers and hands.

Gross motor skills require the bigger muscles in the torso, as well as the arms and legs, like your child's triceps, biceps, quads and glutes. Gross motor skills, also known as large motor skills, allow your baby to move from sitting and crawling to cruising, walking and running.

What age do fine motor skills develop?

From birth to about 4 months, one of a newborn’s reflexes, or palmar grasp, allows your baby to grasp and hold something pressed to the center of his palm. As your baby outgrows this reflex, he’ll discover other ways to use his fingers.

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Here’s a rough timeline of when fine motor skills fully develop (though know that every child grows at their own rate).

• Month 3: Your baby may be able to grasp a rattle or toy held to the backs or tips of his fingers, although it's more common for baby to pick up this skill in month 4.
• Month 4: Your baby will probably reach for an object, and if it's pressed against his fingers, he'll be able to hold it.
• Month 5: He will probably be able to hold objects as large as a ball between his hands, or as small as a Cheerio inside his fist.
• Month 6: Your baby might rake his fingers to pick up a small object in his fist, such as a raisin, which can be a choking hazard to babies. So be sure to keep small or dangerous objects out of your little one's reach.
• Month 7: Your baby will probably be able to pass a toy or object from one hand to the other.
• Month 8: He may pick up tiny objects, using part of his thumb and finger in a pincer grasp.
• Month 9: Your baby may be able to wave bye-bye or play patty-cake, although it's just as common for these trickier coordination skills to develop by month 10 or 11.
• Month 10: Your baby may have perfected his pincer grasp, and might be able to pick up a tiny object neatly with the tips of his thumb and forefinger.
• Month 11: He will probably have mastered all the finger skills: grasping, holding, reaching, raking, passing, waving, clapping and picking up small objects neatly and with control.

Activities to promote fine motor skills for babies and toddlers

Encourage your baby or toddler's developing fine motor skills by introducing finger games and providing plenty of safe objects to touch, explore and hold.

Here are some ideas to try:

• Play finger games: Teach your baby the classics, like itsy-bitsy spider, This Little Piggy, peekaboo or patty-cake. 
• Set up a play gym or bar: Your baby will love holding, spinning, pulling and poking the variety of toys on a play gym or bar. Just avoid any that have strings more than 6 inches long, and take down any gym once your baby can sit up.
• Introduce a rattle: Start with wrist rattles, then move onto those with two handles or grasping surfaces, which will eventually allow baby to pass the rattle from hand to hand, an important skill. They're also good for relief when teething begins.
• Offer him some kitchen tools: Wooden spoons, pots, pans, plastic measuring cups — all of these are enticing "real world" objects that babies tend to love examining and manipulating.
• Set up an activity board: These have a variety of buttons, dials and switches that teach not just finger skills but also cause-and-effect. Lights sounds and movements will captivate your little one. (Make sure there are no small, loose parts that can be pulled off.)
• Play with blocks: Whether they’re made from wood, plastic or cloth, or are large or small, blocks are fantastic learning tools at this age. Your little one will grab and eventually pick them up, learning how to knock them together and make music (at least to his ears!). Though younger babies don't have the dexterity to stack blocks, they get their kicks by unstacking.
• Provide soft dolls and stuffed animals: As your cutie gets bigger, loveys with different textures and features (zippers, laces) will excite the senses and help improve small motor dexterity.
• Serve up finger foods: Add tiny cheese cubes, tofu chunks and other small but baby-safe foods to his diet once he has started solids and graduated to finger foods. Maneuvering these bite-sized morsels into his mouth will help hone his pincer grasp skills — aka, the ability to pick something up with his thumb and index finger. 
• Toss a ball around: Choose ones that come in various weights and are made of different materials.
• Set out some stacking containers: At first your baby will just hold and drop these, but later on he may try to clang two containers together. When he’s older, he’ll learn how to stack them high.
• “Scribble” with crayons and markers: Once your budding artist passes his first birthday, if he can hold a chunky crayon, he may also start scribbling with it. Don’t expect much more than a few random marks on (or off) the page, though. Although he may be months — or even years — away from finger painting, gluing a collage or cutting up construction paper, this (very abstract) first art project will help work his little muscles.

Just as some adults have greater manual dexterity than others, babies can vary widely in their finger skills, especially in the first year. But if you’re wondering whether your child’s fine motor skills are lagging, you can always ask your pediatrician to evaluate his milestone progress. 

Some signs of a fine motor delay in babies under the age of 12 months can include only using one hand to bring something to his mouth, having trouble transferring objects from one hand to another or not being able to feeding himself. 

As for what's next? Once he's mastered banging objects together and perfected the pincer grasp, get ready for your little one to move on to other important fine motor skills like scribbling, intentionally moving objects and using silverware.