Kid’s Milestones From Birth to Age 5

As a first time mom I didn’t realize how important it was to understand kid’s milestones from birth to age 5. Even as a second time mom, I haven’t focused on it much, especially with having two kids to keep alive. For me, a lot of these things on this list I assumed they would just pick up. Kids probably would pick up a lot of these things on their own because they are so smart. But because they are so smart they can learn things so much easier and faster if we just sit and teach them how.

One way I’ve found that helps me to focus on my kids development is to have a plan. I have come up with a list of goals just to have an idea of what spend time teaching your kids. A struggle I have had with parenting is not knowing when my kids are old enough to understand something. Although they usually can learn if I teach it to them.

Included at the bottom are some of the tools I use to teach Oliver. He loves the flashcards, puzzles, and writing books. It’s more like a game to him than actually learning. He has so much fun and looks forward to practicing them with me.

Also at the bottom of this post is a milestone checklist. This is a great resource to help keep you on track and focused on what to work on next with your kids. I’ve included everything on this list with extra lines following every age group so you can add in things specific to what you want to teach your kids!

0-1 Year Old

• learns to roll over
• begins to crawl
• says “mama” & “dada”
• can wave goodbye
• learns to climb up stairs (always supervised)
• responds to simple directions like “no” or “come here”

I’ve noticed that our first baby accomplished many of these things a lot earlier than our second. And I think it has something to do with the amount of time we were able to give them at this age, as much as I hate to admit it. With Oliver we had so much more free time to spend just playing on the floor with him and teaching him things. But with Marley we have more on our plate and less time.

1-2 Years Old

• learns to walk
• teach to use spoon and fork
• begin to get used to the potty
• learns animals & their sounds
• learns to clean up toys
• teach body parts
• learns to say “please” and “thank you”

Lately we’ve just been focusing on teaching Mar to walk. She can use a fork if the food is already on it and she just needs to put it in her mouth. The other day I got her to pick up all the toys in the living room. After she begins to walk I’ll probably try to start putting her on the potty. I’m also hoping I can get Oliver to help me start teaching her body parts and animal noises soon.

2-3 Years Old

• fully potty trained
• teach to put on shoes
• learns colors and shapes
• can count to ten
• learns to feed self without help
• teach full name and age
• learn to ride tricycle
• teach to help set the table
• begin to memorize bible verses
• teach to sing alphabet

The only one of these things that Oliver still can’t do is put his shoes on but that’s only because he’s too lazy. Other than that, he was able to learn everything else by age 3. I was skeptical to see if he was able to start to memorize bible verses at such a young age but I was wrong. After a few weeks of having him repeat John 3:16 with me every night he was able to do it all by himself!

Related → 25 Great Beginner Bible Verses for Kids

3-4 Years Old

• teach to fasten zipper
• can identify letters and numbers
• learn address and phone number of a parent
• write their name (tracing or not)
• can use scissors to cut paper
• teach to make bed
• learn to completely dress self
• learn opposites
• can color inside the lines

This is where Oliver is now. He’s already pretty good at identifying letters but we’re still working on numbers. We’ve had him say our address a few times but not enough for him to have it memorized yet. He can write the O and L in his name. And We’ve been working on learning opposites with these cool Opposites Puzzles. He still has a lot to learn before he hits four but it’s easy to keep track of the development checklist!

4-5 Years Old

• write numbers 1-10
• write all 26 letters
• learn to complete a pattern
• match uppercase to lowercase letters
• can use the bathroom alone
• understands rhyming words

Since I don’t have a 4-5 year old these are some goals I complied from different things on Pinterest. I would like to send Oliver off to kindergarten knowing how to do all of them but we’ll see where he’s at when we get there.