General development for an 18 month old

His sleep varies. Typically not any wake ups but he takes time to get to sleep. ( Edit. He has some wake ups sometimes. It varies ) Sometimes he falls asleep on his own, but that's only if we've been super active that he can just fall asleep easily ish ( dad can put him down like that, me, it's harder ) He self feeds and can hold an open cup on his own, we actually skipped the trainer cups and I did small plastic cups with less water in them, and initially would help him tip and then let him finish holding it up.... But now he can also grab and hold it correctly too. Oh and he can use silverware already too. The silverware we have is for 3 plus.... But it's perfectly sized for him, and the fork is definitely nice with the rounded tines.

I'm trying to teach him some ASL. We practice basic words and I point to things and say what they are. But he mainly babbles but there seems to be some semblance maybe of meaningful. He fast crawls, he's not walking yet unassisted

He's not in daycare either , but I try to work with him some when I can, but my bigger focus is organizing and that I need to pack anything not currently in use or that will be in use anytime soon

@Elizabeth thank you for sharing

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My son has been walking for a while, he climbs on everything, crawls up and down the stairs, and is like daredevil monkey. 🙈 He feeds himself mostly with his hands. He likes to try using silverware but has a hard time getting food on the spoon/fork so that’s a work in progress. I do have him in a STEM based preschool/daycare 3 days a week. Between what he learns there and what we do at home, he can communicate pretty well. Baby sign language (more, please, thank you, eat/feed) really helped when he wasn’t able to pronounce words. He can say a lot of various words that we see/use/do often but also will have baby babble conversations. Because I’ve read bedtime stories to him so much, he’ll sometimes take the book and “read” it to me instead. He can brush his teeth and loves doing so. Sleep patterns depend on the day he’s had. On preschool days, he takes one 2-2.5 hour nap there and goes down for the night super easy because he’s had a lot of stuff happen that day.

Other days he has a shorter nap in the morning and afternoon. These aren’t at set times, more when I see that he’s ready for a nap. This usually means he goes down pretty easy unless he’s determined to fight sleep, then it might take some snuggles, singing to him, etc.

I don’t have a specific amount of time working with him daily. I try to make anything we do a learning opportunity by showing him what I’m doing and explaining/talking to him about it. For example, in the mornings I have him help me get stuff out of the fridge or pantry, repeating the names of items, and show him what I’m doing to make us breakfast. We got a stool/tower like this so he can be a part of what’s going on in the kitchen safely: https://a.co/d/j5x6O3K

By doing the above, he knows a lot of various things like cereal, cook, snowman, Santa, apple, banana, car, truck, etc. He also likes to “help” do things around the house like wash dishes, sweep, take out the trash.

Naps aren't long but she settles herself and falls asleep on her own. We have a couple night time wake ups where she'll wake up for like a minute and whine/cry before going back to sleep 🤷‍♀️ We have been signing more and all done since before 1. Added in eat after 1. She now signs for water. Somehow knows hat. No counting or alphabet but I do sing it to her. She helps us with throwing things away knowing where the trash can is and stuff. And will help us take things from the table to the kitchen. She has also gotten into wanting to walk up the stairs upright instead of on hands and knees now.

Our guy goes down at ~8PM and wakes up at 6AM. He sleeps thru the night almost 100% of the time. He takes one nap, usually 1PM-3PM. We do 3 meals & 2 snacks a day. He can use a spoon and a fork proficiently. He doesn’t love food, it’s our biggest struggle. But he usually has at least a couple decent meals a day. He’s walking, running, and climbing. He can throw and kick balls and is even starting to dribble them (I got a video yesterday, I was literally amazed 😆😅). He loves clipping buckles and zipping zippers. As far as language, he has probably ~20 consistent words, but not so much on ABCs or counting. He knows when we count that he’s supposed to put his fingers up but has really only figured out how to show one finger haha. We’ve gotten a few 2-word combos and he’s starting to do some parts of his favorite songs (like “bubble-pop!” from the Casper Babypants fish song). He can point to almost everything in his books when asked, “where’s the bird? Where’s the skateboard?”, etc.

He can also point to pictures of all his family members when asked “where’s Meme? Where’s Pa? Where’s Mama?” etc. He knows a few signs, like “more” (he basically claps but we know what he means), “all done”, & “thank you”. He can also blow kisses lol. He hugs and kisses all his stuffies and all the pages in books with people or animals. He knows if he can’t get on the couch, to carry something over to use for a boost (he has plastic stepping stones that he uses for this a the time). A lot of what he knows, I think he picked up at daycare. He goes 2 days a week. The other three days he’s with his grandparents during the day, and I work from home two days a week so I’m around but they’re helping. All the time that we have with him we spend either playing or learning, most the time both since lots of our playing is developmental! That being said, we don’t have a ton of time with him each day w/ work and everything else. But I hear his grandparents working with him on all this too!

I forgot to mention, he can identify most of his body parts- head, ears, nose, cheeks, mouth, tongue, eyes, arms, legs, feet, belly, hands. And when I ask him “where’s Lenny?” He points to himself 😆

Thanks for posting this question. It’s good to know what to focus on. We didn’t sleep train so she has to be put to sleep and wakes up couple of times to breastfeed at night. Tried to use utensils to not much result but won’t let me show her how to. Little Miss independent 🤣

She started talking early and says 180-200 words. Pronunciation is mostly cutely wrong but she can say most day to day objects, body parts, animals etc. Can count 1-10 and says a for apple b for bear etc for 50% of the alphabet. Knows her nursery rhymes well.

She is obsessed with books. We have the many word board books like “first little library” and she can say 60-70% of all the books. We didn’t teach her sign language, no screen time, no daycare. She is absolutely not a good eater, in very low percentile weight wise and a picky eater.

@Neel very sweet and impressive! What do you do with your child? What is your developmental parenting style? Thank you