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In newborns, grasping is a reflex action. Babies wrap their tiny fingers around anything that comes in or is put in their hands including your fingers but by the time they are 2 months old, this reflex begins to disappear and baby’s fists that used to be always clenched up now start opening up. Baby may also try to clutch and grab things that are in their direct line of sight such as clothing or hair. They may also try to explore these things and try to put them in their mouth. This is the time, when small things such as buttons, bright colored pills and coins should be kept out of their reach or they may try to pick it up and put them in their mouths.
At first, this grasping and grabbing process is quite shaky and brief and child usually drop the things he catches in a few seconds but with time they master the skills of grasping & grapping and their movements become more refined and they move on to more complicated actions. When babies are about four months old, they try to maneuver things such as plastic toys and in next two months, they may learn to stretch their hands and bodies to grab things that are far from them and transfer the objects from one hand to another.
However, babies learn pincer grasp or the ability to pick up very small objects between their index finger and their thumb at about nine months of age. This pincer grasp is the most important milestone of baby’s hand related skills and is foundation of many future activities such as coloring and eating. You may encourage the child to explore sense of touch by giving him soft, lightweight objects with different and interesting textures, when the child learns pincer grasp.