Baby/Child's Development at the age of Twelve months

As your child turns 12 months old, or simply put one year old, he is called a toddler, not a baby anymore. It’s the age when your child starts toddling or walking. However, it is a very subjective matter among children. While fewer children start walking earlier than one year old, some start several weeks or months to eventually start walking. Your baby now shifts focus from mastering his fine motor skills to exercising larger muscles. His attention span is improving, which now spans two to five minutes for quieter activities.

His favorite activities may not be quiet at all. He enjoys activities involving pushing, throwing and knocking down objects within his reach. He also enjoys games involving nesting containers one into the other. He finds activities like putting things in a container and then dumping them out again interesting. He also likes to play with pots and pans as they make a lot of banging noise together.

As your child turns one year old, he begins resisting taking naps. As a result of his growing independence, the task of putting him to bed becomes all the more challenging and time consuming. However, a well established bed time routine, including story and bath may help the child settle down.

Now your toddler shows interest in using a spoon for feeding himself. Though his aim will take time to refine resulting into more mess, it is a great exercise for your kid to work on his eye-hand coordination, experience independence, as well as render the meal times more fun and enjoyable.

Your toddler still suffers from separation anxiety and does not like to spend his time without you. However, to ease departures, you may leave in quite a matter of fact manner. Making your baby more independent and making it quick when you kiss him good bye, helps reduce his agony.

Now that he is one, you need to carefully consider and plan what you feed him so that his immune and digestive system grow stronger and healthier. The choice is numerous before you. All you have to take care of is the interests and sensitivity of your toddler towards the food items that you choose. He may be allergic to a particular food item. Or he may not at all like a certain food items at all. In case of history of hereditary allergy, it is advisable to consult the doctor before sticking to a diet plan.

As a toddler, your baby has built a vocabulary of his own, consisting of a couple of words besides Mama and Dada. As he shall grow up, his vocabulary will grow manifolds. By now, your toddlers speaks gibberish, as if speaking a foreign language with all vocal modulations to make the blabbering sound like short sentences. He is able to respond to simple questions and commands, especially if the questions are accompanied with hand gestures as clues. For example, when you ask him to “pick up the spoon”, he responds by looking out for the spoon in the direction you were pointing and may just pick up the spoon if he finds one. He may make his mind clear by shaking his head for no or using his own special gestures. Further, as it is the learning stage of your baby, it is advisable to teach him good manners simultaneously, as he learns the meanings of various words in our day to day vocabulary. Explaining him the meaning and usage of “please” and “thank you” by example and suggestion shall instill the courtesies in his attitude. He may seem unable to get the idea at all for a while, but subconsciously he learns it from you and make you feel proud when you least expect it.

At last, it is important to keep talking to your toddler and keep telling him the names of various items around him so as to expand his vocabulary. Counting stairs every time you climb up and down shall help him learn his numbers more easily. Like wise pointing the name of the colors and objects in view, including fruits, vegetables, and grocery items, shall help him acquire a better vocabulary faster. Reading a picture book to your toddler is another superb idea to engage him, as well as, benefit his knowledge bank.