Baby Not Pointing Yet

Two kinds of pointing, two different ages

The revised CDC checklists split pointing into two milestones, and the split explains most of the confusion:

• "Points to ask for something or to get help" — 15 months. This is instrumental pointing: I want that.
• "Points to show you something interesting" — 18 months. This is declarative pointing: look at that, with me.

Both ages come from the 2022 revision, carried out by an American Academy of Pediatrics expert group and published in Pediatrics. Every item on the revised lists sits at the age by which "most (≥75%) children would be expected to demonstrate the milestone", and the paper notes that one third of retained milestones moved to a different age, with two thirds of those moving older.

That is the single most useful fact for a worried parent of a twelve-month-old. On the current CDC checklists, pointing is not expected at twelve months at all.

What the other bodies say

The HSE describes pointing appearing earlier than the CDC checklist ages, which is consistent: it is describing first appearance rather than the 75th percentile. At eleven months a baby may "look at something when you point to it" and "ask for something by pointing or by looking at something then at you". At twelve months they may "point at objects they want to show you, such as a toy".

ASHA places "points, waves, and shows or gives objects" in the ten to twelve month band.

So the honest summary is: some babies point from around ten or eleven months, most are pointing to request by fifteen months, and pointing to share arrives later still.

Following a point comes first

Before a baby points, they learn to follow someone else's point. The HSE lists "look at something when you point to it" at eleven months, and it is worth testing separately: point at something interesting across the room and see whether your baby looks at the thing rather than at your finger. A baby who follows a point is doing the joint-attention work that pointing itself will express a few months later.

What matters more than pointing at twelve months

Whether there are any gestures. A twelve-month-old who does not point but raises their arms to be lifted, waves, hands you things, pushes away what they do not want and pulls you towards what they do is communicating without speech, which is exactly what gestures are for. The CDC checklist lists "lifts arms up to be picked up" at nine months and "waves 'bye-bye'" at twelve months for that reason.

Whether attention is shared. Does your baby look at something, then look at you, then back? That back-and-forth — which the HSE describes at eleven months as "looking at something then at you" — is the underlying skill. Pointing is one way of expressing it; showing you an object, or bringing you something, are others.

Whether the rest of the package is there: responding to their name, babbling with a variety of sounds, understanding familiar words, making eye contact, and enjoying back-and-forth games.

What helps

Naming and pointing at things yourself, constantly and casually. The NHS's advice for six to twelve months is to "name and point to things you can both see, for example, 'Look, a cat'", adding detail as your baby gets older. Books help because they hold two people's attention on one small space: the HSE recommends looking at picture books together and talking about the pictures that interest your baby, and suggests bubbles as a way to practise "looking, tracking and waiting".

Placing wanted things visibly out of reach also creates a reason to point. So does pausing: the HSE's advice is to "leave little pauses for them to take their turn", which gives a baby room to make a request rather than having everything anticipated.

If your baby was born early

Correct for prematurity. A baby born two months early is at ten months corrected on their first birthday, and at thirteen months corrected when the fifteen-month checklist item becomes due. The AAP advises using adjusted age for tracking development until two years, by which point most children born preterm have caught up.

When to raise it

The pattern matters more than the item. The NHS lists among signs of autism in young children that a child may "not respond to their name", "use eye contact less often" and "use fewer facial expressions and gestures", while stating clearly that "every autistic person is different and many autistic people will not show all the signs of autism". A baby with no gestures at all, no name response and no shared attention at twelve to fifteen months is a pattern; a baby who does not point but does everything else is not.

The HSE says to contact a GP or public health nurse if "you are concerned about your child's development", if you are "worried that your child has a delay or disability", or if "your child loses skills they had before" — and notes that they may carry out more tests or refer on. In Ireland families can also refer themselves. In the UK the same conversation starts with a health visitor or GP.

Losing a gesture is the strongest signal in this article. A baby who was pointing, waving or showing things and has stopped should be reported without waiting for a scheduled review.

Why pointing carries weight at all

Pointing is not just a hand movement. Declarative pointing — look at that, with me — requires a child to know that another person has attention, that attention can be directed, and that sharing something is worth doing for its own sake. That is a lot of social machinery in one gesture, which is why it appears in developmental screening tools rather than only on milestone charts.

It is also why the two kinds are listed separately. A baby who points to get a biscuit has made a request. A baby who points at an aeroplane and then turns to check your face has shared an experience. The second is the one that arrives later, and the one that tells you more.

Pointing and hearing

It is easy to treat pointing as purely social and forget that a baby who cannot hear well has less reason to share things with the person talking. Whenever gestures and words are both slow, ask for a hearing check. Newborn screening tests hearing at birth and does not cover glue ear, which is common in the first year, fluctuates with colds, and is one of the most treatable reasons for a communication delay.