If your baby opens and closes everything, drawers, boxes, cupboard doors, it’s a normal stage of development, most often appearing between 1 year and 18 months. Your little one is exploring what hides behind a door and learning to control their hands. The movement keeps improving up to age 3, with screwing lids and turning door handles.
For grown-ups, it can be exhausting. For your child, it’s a real laboratory. Every opening answers a question: what’s inside, and is it still there when I close it again?
Why does my baby open and close everything?
This behaviour brings two kinds of learning together in a single movement. The first is cognitive: your child is checking that a hidden object still exists. The second is motor: they are learning to judge their strength, coordinate both hands and turn their wrist.
Checking that things still exist
At around 8 to 12 months, your baby gradually understands that an object out of sight hasn’t disappeared. This is called object permanence. Opening and closing a box then becomes a checking game, repeated dozens of times with the same delight.
This love of repetition is nothing to do with being difficult. Your child tests a hypothesis, notes the result, then starts again to make sure the rule holds. It’s the same logic as when they throw things to watch them fall.
Training the hands
Opening a lid means holding the box with one hand and pulling with the other. Turning a handle requires a wrist rotation that children don’t master before the age of two. These movements are part of fine motor skills, which develop step by step.
At what age do babies open and close drawers, boxes and doors?
The ages below are average milestones. A gap of a few months is common and doesn’t, on its own, signal a delay.
Around 9 to 12 months: opening, emptying, pulling out
Your baby starts by opening whatever doesn’t resist: a low drawer, a box without a catch, a basket. They pull out everything they find and scatter it around. Closing comes later, because pushing precisely is harder than pulling.
Between 13 and 18 months: trying to unscrew
According to the development guides from Naître et grandir (a Canadian parenting resource), children of this age try to unscrew a lid, without necessarily managing it. They also tip boxes over to spill out what’s inside. Offering them containers and lids to match up helps them understand sizes.
Between 18 and 24 months: the door handle
From around eighteen months to two years, your child tries to open doors by turning the handle. They also begin to open and close plastic containers more deliberately. This is often the age when parents discover that no low cupboard is out of reach any more.
Around 30 months to 3 years: screwing, unscrewing, turning
The milestones from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) place the ability to turn things with the hands at around 30 months. The examples given are turning a door handle or unscrewing a lid. Naître et grandir states that between two and a half and 3 years, children manage to open doors by turning the handles.
What this game develops in your child
- Two-handed coordination. One hand steadies, the other acts. This sharing of roles prepares for drawing, cutting and getting dressed.
- Wrist rotation. Essential for screwing, turning a key and, later on, holding a spoon without spilling.
- The idea of container and contents. In, out, full, empty: your child handles these ideas long before they can name them.
- Problem solving. A lid that won’t budge means trying another way: twisting, pulling, asking for help.
- Language. The words ‘open’, ‘shut’, ‘in’ and ‘more’ often arrive with this game.
How to support this need to open and close
Saying no doesn’t work for long, because the need is real. It’s better to give your child permitted opportunities and make the rest of the home safe.
A drawer of their own
Set aside a low drawer or kitchen cupboard for your toddler. Fill it with safe things: plastic tubs, lids, wooden spoons, cups. They can open it, empty it and fill it as much as they like.
Boxes with lids and screw-top jars
A few boxes of different sizes, with their lids, are enough to keep a 15-month-old busy. At around 2 years, add wide plastic screw-top jars. Pop a small object inside to give them a reason to open it.
This game works brilliantly on the floor, on a soft surface where things land quietly. Our foldable XPE foam baby play mat provides this play space, and folds away once playtime is over. Shape sorters extend the same exploration, as our article on baby puzzles explains.
Naming the actions
Go along with the game using simple words: ‘you’re opening it’, ‘it’s shut’, ‘it’s inside’. Your child links the movement and the word, which supports their budding vocabulary.
Making your home safe when your baby opens everything
The flip side of this stage is access to things that used to be out of reach. The French government’s 1000 premiers jours (first 1,000 days) website recommends securing drawers with a safety lock kit. It also advises fixing furniture to the wall to stop it tipping over.
Household products and medicines should be stored up high, in an inaccessible drawer or a locked cupboard. Never decant a cleaning product into another container, such as a water bottle. Our article on accidental poisoning in children sets out the figures from Anses (the French food, environmental and occupational health safety agency).
Doors bring another risk: trapped fingers. A door stopper or finger guard reduces accidents in the rooms where your child plays. Our guide to babyproofing your home goes through the useful equipment room by room.
Finally, anything that comes out of a box often ends up in the mouth before the age of two. Check the size of the objects left within reach, for the reason explained in our article on babies who put everything in their mouth.
My baby doesn’t open anything: should I be worried?
Not necessarily. Some children prefer other kinds of exploring, such as climbing, stacking or watching. The absence of this particular game means nothing on its own.
Medical advice is worth seeking if your child uses their hands very little in general, doesn’t grasp objects or shows no interest in their surroundings. Mention it to the doctor at routine check-ups, which include a developmental assessment.
Sources
- Naître et grandir, “13 à 18 mois : motricité fine”, updated September 2019.
- Naître et grandir, “1 1/2 à 2 ans : motricité fine”, updated September 2019.
- Naître et grandir, “2 1/2 à 3 ans : motricité fine”, updated September 2019.
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), “Important Milestones: Your Child By Thirty Months”, page reviewed 16 May 2026.
- 1000 premiers jours, website of the French Ministry of Health, “Éviter les accidents domestiques des enfants”, updated 11 July 2025.
