Toddler Development Guide and Parenting Tips for 12-24 Months

The second year of your baby’s life, between 12 and 24 months of age, is of rapid growth. At this age, they learn to walk, talk, run, and even read and write. Their vocabulary expands and they become better at expressing themselves. This is also the time when they learn to identify people and emotions. With that, they learn to throw tantrums. This stage can be especially challenging for parents. You may feel tired and exhausted by their nagging behavior most of the time.

Here are some developmental milestones that your child will achieve between one and two years of age:

• Babies usually get their first tooth somewhere after six months of age. However, between one and two years of age, they get almost all their milk teeth. You can expect the first molar to appear during this stage.

• They keep growing in height and weight.

• Emotionally, they start getting attached to their caregivers. At this stage, most babies suffer from “separation anxiety” when they do not see their caregivers around.

• They learn quickly at this age. They start learning about everything around them. They become curious about things around them and may even start asking you questions.

• They develop rudimentary memory and can recollect incidents that happened a while back.

• They learn to imitate.

• They learn languages. Their vocabulary increases. They know more words than they can speak at this stage.

• They start understanding the emotions of others. They know when someone is angry, sad, or happy.

• They gain cognitive coordination. They can climb, jump, potty training, run, and cartwheel at this age.

What can you do as a parent to help your child at this stage?

You can help them develop their language and other cognitive skills by doing the following:

• Talk to your child. Show them things and tell them the name of those things. Before you know it, your baby will recognize objects by their names.

• Teach them to stack blocks. This will increase their cognitive skills.

• Give them a pencil, wax crayons, and paper to scribble.

• Let them play with a ball.

• Play hide and seek with them.

• Give them blocks and ask them to fit them to the appropriate shape.

• Hide their toys and ask them to find them.

• Let them get messy.

At this age, keep talking to them. You can even sing to them. While talking, always maintain eye contact. Try to get down to their height while talking.