How Toddlers Grow

A Look at Development During Your Child's Second Year of Life

By Renee Roberson

The hectic first year of your baby's life has passed and you can begin to look forward to more consistent sleeping and eating routines and watching your new toddler's language and fine and gross motor skills develop. Here, experts share just a few of the developmental milestones you can look forward to in your child's second year of life. But remember, all children develop at a different rate.

Your toddler is typically working on developing words by the end of his first year. "Kids begin to have word approximations with the same representative sounds consistently by 12 months of age," says Kathleen Murphy, a speech language pathologist with Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates, a multi-specialty physician practice with several locations in eastern Massachusetts. Murphy points out that social communication is very important at all ages. Toddlers should be consistently pointing at things, looking and sharing with others to express what they need.

Your toddler will most likely be walking by this age and saying four to 10 words consistently, says Dr. Joseph Kahn, chair of pediatrics for St. John's Mercy Children's Hospital in St. Louis, Mo. Although your child may not be saying a whole lot at this point, his receptive language skills should be pretty well developed. "She should understand simple one-step commands," Dr. Kahn says.

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