My baby is currently busy pulling all the dirty clothes out of the laundry basket and throwing them on the floor. 
She also enjoys pushing things off tables and throwing her toys and books on the floor. Is this some kind of stage they go through?
Babies do all sorts of bizarro things as they explore the world. Every situation is a new opportunity. It’s better than TV!! Enjoy!!
Signed,
Grandmother of Toddler Tornado 
No, it’s a kind of stage you go through. It doesn’t bother them at all.
Sure is. The fact you are asking makes me wonder whether you are consulting any child rearing handbooks, as it’s a well known phenomenon. The books I read all suggested putting safe, easily washed utensils in the kitchen drawers your baby could reach (or else use child safety locks so baby can’t open them, but that’s no fun) so that baby could have fun opening drawers and flinging out utensils whenever in the kitchen with you.
It’s a somewhat tiring, but very cute, stage. Enjoy!
Are you sure your baby isn’t a cat?
Babies and cats have a great deal in common, as both demonstrate high levels of curiosity (with a particular need to affirm that gravity is a thing) and behave as though the universe revolves around them. Cats are better toilet trained, though.
Quieter too. Did I mention vastly cheaper?
IANA parent, so pardon my abject ignorance. When does a newborn stop being termed a “baby”?
I think they can’t be called a “toddler” until they can toddle, i.e. walk upright unsteadily for at least short distances.
The behaviors the OP describes sound to me to be more advanced than when I’d stop calling the child a “baby” and switch to, I dunno, “kid”.
I think of “baby” as the [helpless flapping their arms sorta ramdomly while laying wherever you put them last] stage. IOW, in my mind baby and infant are all but synonyms.
Maybe that functionally inert stage is more properly the “infant” stage, and “baby” is the next stage between infant and toddler while the kid is sitting up, crawling, and doing movements badly, but with purposeful intent to affect the real world. By gleefully making the largest noisiest mess possible with whatever goods are in reach 
Funny you should say that. 
There are some striking resemblances.
I haven’t been, no. Since they seem to completely reverse the advice every 10-20 years, I’m not sure how useful they are. I do consult baby forums when I’m not sure about something. But I’m not worried about this, I just think it’s cute and funny.
I think infant is the inert stage and baby covers anything younger than toddler age. She’s been crawling and standing up for a while now, and has started to move around on the furniture. I keep being surprised by things she can reach and get to - nothing is safe!
Sounds good. You’ve got one at a fun age. Or so my extended family with kids tell me.
Remember. Unlike you, they have nothing to think about and nothing to do all day except explore. The whole wide world exists only to be tossed onto the floor.
Soon enough that’ll turn into “explore, throw, and drive Mommy nuts with our non-stop attempts at speech and asserting our independence authoritay.”
It is a fun age! It’s amazing how she seems to learn something new every day. I’m not looking forward to the terrible twos.
I dunno - my baby is 35 and has a baby of her own. 
We do refer to Roxy as “the baby” still. She’s 2 anna half and beginning to speak recognizable English. I expect once she’s more conventionally conversant, she’ll become “the kid” or “that child!!!” She does refer to herself as a baby, even if I tell her she’s a big girl.
You don’t have to read them for advice, particularly - but they can be helpful to understanding your child’s development. For example, some typical benchmarks are that babies sit up at about 5 months and take their first steps/say their first words around 12 months. And teeth generally start coming in around 9 months.
Obviously, a certain amount of variation in either direction is normal. But those benchmarks don’t change “every 10-20 years” - they are timeless, and all books will tell you pretty much the same thing. It can be helpful to understand why your kid is suddenly cranky and drooling - oh gosh, they’re teething, see if they’d like a cold teething toy.
But of course, YMMV regarding the usefulness of baby books. I was a huge fan. The tried and true advice tended to be the same from book to book; other times it was clear that the author had a particular and not universal child rearing philosophy. I picked and choose what worked for me, ignored it when none of it seemed helpful, and got ideas I wouldn’t have otherwise thought of.
Anyway, people were raising babies long before we all had books, so I’m sure you don’t really need them - although the books substitute in modern times for close-knit multigenerational families and friends, where you had experienced parents around to help. If you have that, that’s frequently as good or better than a book.
I wondered a lot about that when I had one. My personal sense is that a child is a baby from roughly zero to 18 months, and a toddler from when they start walking to when they are confident walkers no longer sporting the bulge of a diaper under their pants (roughly two and a half to three years, but there is a lot of variation there).
Anyway, if you adopt my definitions there is often a six month period, from 12 to 18 months, when kids are both a baby and a toddler. Hey, I didn’t claim my rules make perfect sense.
I miss the days when we had preschoolers…
The fastest creature on earth is a toddler who has found a steak knife.
All that stuff like milestones is online now. I promise I’m not just winging it. It’s easy to find official checklists, there are videos on YouTube showing what babies should be doing at different ages, and plenty of mothers, and families making videos of their daily lives, reviewing baby products etc. If all that didn’t exist I would definitely have got a book or two, but I feel like now the only reason to buy one is if it has really good advice that you can’t find elsewhere. My BIL actually just recommended one to me, so I’ll be looking into that.
I also have two sisters, one has a toddler, and the other a toddler and a baby just a little older than mine, so they have given me plenty of advice. It’s really nice that all the kids are so similar in age, just wish we lived a little closer.
And that makes me think of my own terminology question. I call my sister’s two children ‘the babies’, which feels weird because one is a toddler, but it seems wrong to say ‘the kids’ when they are both so young. I like the idea of an overlap between baby and toddler, though. Kids walk at all different ages, so it makes sense.
That’s what I was wondering.
And then there’s the stage when they discover they can train you.
Baby drops toy.
Helpful adult picks toy up and gives to baby.
Light bulb goes off over baby’s head. Baby drops toy again…
Hmmm… cats (and dogs) do that, too.
Second-fastest. Fastest would be the parent who first spies him carrying it.