Your Child’s Development 8-18 Months

Milestones: By 18 Months, Most Children Can:

• Walk without holding onto anyone or anything.
• Scribble on paper.
• Drink from a cup without a lid, even if it spills.
• Feed themselves with their fingers.
• Try to use a spoon.
• Climb on and off a couch or chair on their own.

Physical Development: Your child will naturally learn new skills and likely move from one skill to the next without being “taught” how to do the next thing.

Body Awareness and Control:

• Your child will be more aware of their body around other objects and people.
• Your child will start having separation awareness and understanding that you are leaving them. You will want to let them know you are leaving and give them time to wave goodbye while reminding them that you always come back.

Muscle Development and Coordination:

• Your child may still use crawling to move around.
• Your child will move from crawling to walking and begin trying to climb.
• Your child may love to push things, including boxes and toy strollers.
• Your child will coordinate eyes and hands while exploring or holding objects.

Nutrition: 

• Your child will start to chew and bite and feed themselves with their fingers.
• Your child will eat three meals a day plus snacks.

Safety: 

• Children need to be watched as they are moving around.
• Children should have low, safe things to pull up on and walk around, like a couch or couch cushions on the floor, where they can walk from one thing to the next while holding on.
• When children begin walking, it is important to ensure their area is free from sharp edges since they fall often while learning.
• Children will seek comfort from their parents when faced with people or spaces.

Self-care: 

• Your child can help get dressed and undressed.
• Children can help feed themselves using their fingers even if all the food doesn’t make it into their mouths.

Milestones: By 18 Months, Most Children Can:

• Say “mama” or “dada” and three other words.
• Follow one-step directions without you making hand motions. This looks like your child giving you a toy when you say, “Give me the toy.”

Communication: Your child understands many words, and they are developing the ability to speak more and more of those words to communicate their feelings, needs, and ideas.

Expressive Communication/ Expressive Language:

• Children use crying, sounds, the beginning of words, and gestures to communicate their feelings, needs, and ideas. Gestures include things like waving, pointing, reaching, and pushing. Pushing is a common way young children communicate before they have the words to express themselves. 
• Children will also use biting as communication to let their peers or adults know they are frustrated.
• When young children start saying words, sometimes they say a part of the word, like the beginning or end.
• Children at this age often use a single word to refer to several similar things. For example, they might call cats, dogs, goats, and sheep all “kitties.” They recognize that these animals share common features, such as having fur and four legs, but they have not yet learned their specific names. Additionally, children may replace the actual name of an object with the sound it makes, calling a cat “meow, meow” or a car “vroom.” They frequently use one word to convey an entire idea. For instance, “up” might mean “pick me up,” “uh-oh” indicates something has spilled, dropped, or broken, and “mama” could express a desire to find their mother.
• Children will move from repeating single words to using multiple words to communicate.
• Children will use words in social ways to peers, such as “no,” “yes,” “mine,” and other words. 

Receptive Communication/Receptive Language:

• You can respond to your child in the conversation using the correct words (for example, when the child says “Googie,” the parent responds, “That is a big doggie!”). 
• Saying what you are doing during the day helps your child learn language (for example, saying “I’m putting on my shoes so I can go outside.”)
• Pausing after you ask your child a question lets them understand the back and forth of communication.
• Children listen to words that are spoken directly to them as well as to conversations that are happening around them.
• Children pay attention to tone of language and can notice when your tone is excited, loving, frustrated, or scared.
• Children can understand simple requests better when you use a gesture as well. For example, if  you hold your hand and say, “Give me your shoe, please.”

Emergent Reading

• Children are interested in books. They enjoy spending time with you, looking at and reading a book. They watch you when you read, follow the pictures with their eyes, point to pictures, turn the pages, and name some things in the book.
• Children will treat books like other toys and objects.
• Having books for your child will let her include them in different parts of her day.
• Using small board books with children allows them to participate in turning the pages more easily.
• Read books to your child. This is your child’s first experience of “reading” and the beginning step to her understanding that books hold stories, words, and information.
• Read slowly so your child can listen to your words, examine the pictures, and help turn the pages.
• Young children like to read the same books over and over.
• You can make simple books for your child using photos of people and things he enjoys. These homemade books help her see that books can represent things she knows about.
• Talk about pictures and books with your child. Learning that pictures represent things is the first step to understanding that letters can also represent things.
• Children will bring a book to an adult to be read to and respond positively to an adult’s offer to read to them.
• Print and alphabet awareness as shown by beginning to recognize that labels convey meaning (E.g., Jared sees a box of Cheerios and says, “Oh, Oh!”)
• Children will enjoy repeatedly listening to the same books and may appear to be reading the words because they have memorized the story.

Writing: 

• Children will use different writing tools like crayons, markers, and pens and notice that they can make marks on paper.

Milestones: By 18 months, most children:

• Solve problems by focusing on things they find interesting, even when there are distractions around them.
• Usually listen to an adult and stay engaged with a toy or activity for a longer time.
• Inquiry and Exploration
• Can explore objects using their senses and manipulate them in a variety of ways. For example, a child may shake or bang a toy to make it work
• Do things to get a response from familiar adults and children. For example, a child drops peas and looks over to his caregiver as they fall from the table to the floor
• Reasoning and Problem Solving:
• Act out ideas about how things work by repeating and changing their actions

Play:

• A child may initiate turn-taking with a trusted adult. For example, a child gives a small toy to his grandmother and she gives another toy to him, they repeat this several times
• A child may invent ways to attract adult attention and engage with them. For example, a child pretends to cough to gain her teacher’s attention and repeats this when her teacher laughs
• Children may express delight in ways appropriate to their culture

Executive Function:

• Children can carry out their own one-step plan. For example, a child puts a hat on her head
• Children can have expectations of what will happen based on previous experiences. For example, a child pulls his mother’s hand to bring her to the refrigerator, knowing she will offer juice to him
• A child may explore objects that interest them with focus and persistence
• Symbolic Representation:
• Children may draw comfort from objects that represent family members or primary caregivers. For example, a child keeps her mother’s scarf in her clubby and clings to it when upset.

Tips to support cognitive learning:

• At this age, your baby may love to use their senses to explore the world. You can give them toys with different textures, sounds, and colors. Safe household items like wooden spoons, soft fabrics, or even a plastic container can be fascinating for them to explore
• Your baby may start to understand that their actions can cause things to happen. Simple toys like rattles, pop-up toys, or even banging a spoon on a pot can show them cause and effect.
• Your baby is a little scientist, always testing out their theories. Stacking cups or blocks can help them understand concepts like size and order. You can ask them simple questions like, “Which one is bigger?” to get them thinking.
• After playtime, you can talk about what they did. For example, “You put the block on top of the other one!” This helps them reflect on their actions.
• Let them try fitting shapes into a shape sorter. Even if they don’t get it right at first, they’re learning through trial and error.
• Introduce new toys or activities gradually. This helps them adapt to changes and new experiences. Encourage them to reach for toys just out of their grasp. This promotes intentional movement and planning. Play simple games like hiding a toy under a blanket and then revealing it. This helps them remember where it is.
• Engage in activities that require attention, like looking at picture books together. Point out and name the pictures to keep their focus
• Praise their efforts and persistence in trying new things. Even if they don’t succeed immediately, they’re learning to keep trying.

Milestones: By 18 months, most children:

• Begin to learn counting through everyday activities. For example, you might give them “three pieces of banana – 1, 2, 3” or suggest reading “two books.”
• Grasp the concept of quantity. For example, if they want more bread, they might reach for it and say “more” or use sign language to ask for more
• Experiment with small numbers. For example, children know they can usually only carry one item in each hand, which gives them a lot of practice with the number “two” even if they can’t say it yet.
• Begin to think about size and comparison. For example, a child might put a little sand in one container and a lot in another, describing the container with more sand as “bigger.”
• Show an early grasp of numbers and order. For example, your child might line up two or three cars in a row

Tips to support Number Sense skills:

• During the bath, count the bath toys as you put them in the water, like “One duck, two ducks.”
• Talk about the shapes and sizes of different bath toys, like “This is a big boat, and this is a small fish.”
• During meal times, Count pieces of food, like “One, two, three pieces of apple.”
• Count the utensils or plates while setting the table, like “One spoon for you, one spoon for me.”
• Count things you see outside, like “One tree, two trees.”
• Sing counting songs or rhymes together, like “Five Little Ducks” or “Ten in the Bed.”
• Count the number of cars you see of a particular color, like “One red car, two red cars.”