Wave your hand, stick out your tongue, blow a kiss, and watch your nine-month-old study you closely before trying it back. Copy That turns simple gestures into a genuine imitation game, one of the clearest, most visible signs of a baby’s growing attention and memory.
Why this game matters
Copying a gesture requires a baby to watch closely, hold the action in mind, wait for their turn, and then attempt to reproduce it themselves, a real, multi-step cognitive task even though it looks like simple play. Imitation at this age is also a significant social and developmental milestone in its own right, a baby who copies a gesture is demonstrating genuine attention, memory, and intentional control over their own body.
What you need
Nothing but your own hands and face.
How to play
Make a simple, clear gesture in front of your baby, a wave, sticking out your tongue, blowing a kiss, and watch closely for any attempt to copy it. Babies at this age often take a moment to watch, process, and then try, so give them genuine time rather than immediately repeating the gesture yourself.
If your baby makes a gesture first, entirely on their own, copy it back to them. This flips the game and shows your baby that imitation works both ways, which tends to be met with real delight.
Variations
Rotate through a small set of different gestures, a wave, a clap, a specific face, to give your baby a varied but manageable set to work with, rather than overwhelming them with something new every single time.
Try gestures at different distances and in different settings, a wave across the room, a gesture during a car ride, to see whether your baby can generalise the imitation beyond the exact context they first learned it in.
Why waiting for their own attempt matters
It can be tempting to immediately repeat a gesture several times in a row, but giving your baby genuine space to process and attempt their own copy, even if it takes a few seconds or comes out imperfectly, is where the real practice happens. An imperfect wave that your baby clearly intended as a copy is still a genuine, valuable attempt worth celebrating.
A wave, a silly face, or a blown kiss, offered patiently and repeated across many small moments throughout the day, gives a nine-month-old real, low-pressure practice at watching closely, remembering, and acting with intention, which are exactly the skills that will keep building as they grow.
