Toddler Month 34-36 — Growth and Development

Your baby is soon going to complete three years of age – wow, he is become quite a big fellow! He is learning important skills every day and his overall development is advancing by leaps and bounds. Track these changes and watch with wonder as he grows up faster each day.

Physical Development

• Your tot now has a full mouth. We mean, he has a full set of primary teeth! You are going to love those smiles you will be capturing tirelessly on your camera. This is the order in which teeth appear in children; you can use this as a guide.
• Not only is he smiling and giggling, he is also more active than ever before. With good control over his movements, he can now gallop, roll over and twirl around. There’s going to be good fun at the park, playground and home – just make sure he stays safe!
• Taking his body control further, he will also be able to balance on each foot. He should be able to do this for a few seconds or more. This is going to be a popular activity for him as he realizes the wonderful things he can do now as far as physical activity is concerned.

Social and Emotional Development

• Remember that time when your baby would wail and squeal as soon as you left him alone even for a second? Well, your child has now grown up and is learning to cope with separation better. He uses transitional objects for this, such as a much-loved teddy bear. He even learns to control and self-regulate his emotions by behaviours such as thumb-sucking.
• In fact, your child now understands not just his own emotions but also the emotions of others. He has understood how to identify and label simple emotions like happiness and sadness, and whenever he perceives these in other, he tries to change them for the better. So, if you look unhappy in his presence, he will recognise this and actually try to cheer you up!
• You should now be prepared for signs of emerging competitiveness in your tot. He will display these signs when he plays simple games with siblings or peers.

Cognitive Development

• This period marks significant cognitive development in your toddler. For starters, he has now started to dress without help. This frees up at least some of your time for other chores and household or work duties.
• Guess who’s now showing interest in creative activities that also require concentration? Your little one can actually string 1.5″ beads together and will love doing this as a pastime! Beading is an important milestone for him as it brings together focus, fine motor skills and an increasing attention-span.
• Not only is your tot more conscious about the world at home, but he will also start noticing changes in nature. For example, if you get him a houseplant, he will be delighted to see the seed gradually growing into a sprout. You should use some of these tips to help build the connection between your toddler and nature.
• Another big indicator of your toddler’s growing cognitive capacity is the structure you will see in the games he now plays. He enjoys playing with building blocks under guidance and also plays games such as Tag. Even with pretend play, he now sets a mental narrative or story that sets the tone and pattern for the activity. You can use some of these ideas for structured play to help your tot along.
• Your tot’s mathematical ability is also growing fast. He can now count up to 10 objects! You should encourage this further by giving him regular practice. Use this guide to teach your child to count from 1-10.

Linguistic Development

• Look out for long and verbose descriptions of the surroundings by none other than your toddler! He will now be able to describe things using a lot of words. This will be good fun! Here are some ideas to help you teach your child to describe events verbally.
• Finally, probably the biggest development you will see in his language skills now is this: using mental state words. We mean phrases like “I think”, “I know”, I “feel”, etc. Yes, your tot will actually begin to talk about his thoughts and feelings and quite coherently at that.

Very soon, your toddler is going to complete three years and enter preschool age! Take a sneak peek at all the momentous developmental changes you can expect to see in your child then.