What to Expect in a Fifteen-Month-Old Toddler

Your baby is now a toddler; boy, do they grow fast! He is the student of the world and engages in everything that strikes his curiosity. He will move from one object to another while intensely discovering and exploring the function of everything. He may become anxious when separation from parents occurs or when he recognizes that there are strangers around.

While your child explores the cause and effect of objects, he is quick to learn that this new skill set can be applied to people. He will test and note the relationship of an object to the outcomes of his actions. Watch him during bathtime as he explores the properties of water and which objects will sink or float. He will experiment with everything around him including you! He will tease you to get a reaction or he will test his limits by checking back at your response to his actions.

At fifteen-months, he is exercising his autonomy with advancement in intellectual and motor developmental bursts; this is the perfect time to encourage his new skills and also setting limits. You may teach him that it is not OK to use his newfound fine motor skills to prick and pry at electrical outlet caps, but you are encouraging him to feed himself bite sized pieces of food using his pincer grasp.

Toddlerhood will have its fair share of polarities. Your toddler strives for independence but balances out his competency with dependence when he needs you for feeding, bathing, or when stranger and separation anxiety are experienced.

Your child is starting to express his desires and displeasures through body language and or expressive language. Whether he has a label for something or he gestures while simultaneously babbling, he is trying to get his point across one way or another. This can be a huge time to experience trial and error as your toddler may or may not be understood, however, notice that he will effectively continue to use consistent labels or babbles if he is able to get one of his needs met.

Continue to label everything for your toddler so that if he is receptive to your language, he will start connecting words to objects and eventually use them.

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