Babies love to be upright. Ceilings get boring, after all. And all the people (and pets, too) around them view life straight ahead, not up and down. So it's no wonder that when held upright by a parent or caregiver, or with the assistance of a toy like an exersaucer or bouncy seat, typically developing babies 8 months of age and under coo, gurgle excitedly and flash those drooly toothless grins.

And yet holding a baby upright for any length of time before his body is ready on its own is doing him a disservice – one you may not see for another few years in the form of difficulty learning how to skip or struggling with penmanship.

While many of the later physical and cognitive challenges can be corrected, child development professionals implore you to avoid supporting Baby in the upright position until his body and brain have mastered all the developmental milestones between raising his head from the floor and walking across the room.

"The development of babies is like building a house," says Kati Knudsen, a pediatric physical therapist at the Providence Neurodevelopmental Center for Children in Portland, Ore. She explains it like this:

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