Your baby at 15 months: development milestones & what to expect

Whereas it’s possible to guess when a baby will start using their fingers in a pincer movement to within a few weeks, the average range for walking is 12 – 15 months, and some children still fall outside that range, starting as early as 9 months or as late as 18 months. If your little one isn’t quite there yet, it doesn’t mean anything is wrong. They might be putting their energy into developing in other ways. But if you have any concerns at all about their mobility or general development, do visit your GP or talk to a health visitor.

Toddlers love to move in lots of different ways. Spinning, dancing, bouncing, climbing up onto furniture (or people!). Climbing is probably the most hazardous of their chosen activities – even those not on their feet yet will likely make every attempt to climb the stairs once they know they’re out of bounds. While your little one can understand you quite well now, you can’t always rely on a firm ‘no’ to keep them safe, so try to keep danger zones warded off with stair gates or artfully positioned furniture. Even still, there will be accidents. Don’t be too hard on yourself. Every bump is a lesson learned.

Play is developing every day. Hand movements are much more coordinated these days, making it easier for your toddler to interact with a much wider variety of objects. Your little one can clap, wave, pass toys from hand to hand, place and remove objects, stack them, sort them, and may even be ready for a bit of building with Duplo or similar. Follow their interests and see where it takes you.

Your toddler’s prefrontal cortex is beginning to develop, which is responsible for their self-control, decision-making, and how they relate to others. This is definitely a work-in-progress; it will be a long time before they can control their impulses or play nicely with other children. For now, while they’re ‘under construction’ you can help by modelling these things for them, demonstrating how it all works in real time. For example, when playing together, you might say, ‘If I throw the ball inside, I might break something. So I’m going to throw the ball outside. Let’s go into the garden.’

Narrating your thought processes might make you feel self-conscious, but sometimes it is helpful to verbalise your thinking. ‘I have to move this toy so we don’t fall over it’ helps them practice the cause-and-effect thinking they’re already using for play. ‘If I pick up one cucumber stick at a time, it’s easier to eat them’ helps them see easier ways to eat without choking! Showing rather than just telling helps drive the message home.

Fifteen months is a good age to practice turn-taking, passing toys between you, saying please and thank you, and generally instilling some of the good social behaviour you want to see as they grow. They’re still too little to have real empathy for other people – though they might make an exception for their nearest and dearest! – so don’t expect miracles. You’re simply laying the foundations at this point.

Another thing to practice is voicing your emotions out loud. For example, ‘It is frustrating that this tower keeps falling over! I have to build it all over again’. Giving your little one the language to articulate what they are feeling is a gift you will appreciate as they get older, when they’ll be able to tell you, ‘I feel sad’, ‘I feel jealous’, and so on.

Rhythms and routines at this stage

How are you finding routines these days? Fewer naps and a more ‘grown up’ feeding schedule ought to make life easier, but developing toddlers don’t necessarily follow the clock on routines and you may find naptimes slipping , bedtimes being resisted and food being, well, all over the floor. It’s a juggle – all of parenting is – but you’re doing a great job. Don’t forget to give yourself the credit you deserve for managing as well as you do.

Bath time

Bath times were so gentle and sweet with a tiny baby, but with your 15-month-old they can become a splashy mess! Some parents enjoy the chaos, while others find it a struggle. Remember, bath time is not an essential part of a bedtime routine; you don’t have to do it every day. In fact, some little ones find bath time so stimulating that you’re better off moving it well away from bedtime, or else your toddler will be too amped up to sleep.

Baths can be a good way to distract your toddler on grumpy days, or just when the weather is awful and you’ve got nothing else to do. Bath toys are great fun, but be careful to squeeze all the water out of them after every bath, otherwise you’ll end up with a toy full of mould – and you know that’s going to go straight in their mouths! Scoops, watering cans, and foam shapes that stick to the side of the bath are also entertaining, and of course you can go all in on the sensory stimulation by blowing bubbles in the bathroom, playing their favourite song (well away from the water!) and even bringing in a disco light. Adapt to your child’s needs. If your child doesn’t enjoy the stimulation, keep it calm and quiet in there.

When it comes to bubble bath, keep an eye on sensitive skin and choose baby-sensitive formulas to avoid irritation.

Getting the temperature right

Too hot in the summer? Too cold in the winter? It’s hard to know how to make sure your little one is the right temperature – and being the wrong temperature is a leading contributor to nighttime wakings.

The ideal room temperature is between 16 and 20 degrees Celsius, so there’s no need to heat the room beyond that. If you’re struggling to get your heating to behave, move the thermostat into your toddler’s bedroom to make that the baseline by which temperature is set.

Here’s a quick reminder: it’s okay to be an okay mum. Your child doesn’t need you to be great. You definitely don’t need to be perfect. If you get to the end of the day and think ‘well, that was alright, I didn’t lose my temper too badly, we got through the tough patches, we laughed a bit’, then you’re doing a good job. You might see mums on Instagram playing games with their children every minute of the day, or mums food prepping all weekend, or mums who are teaching their toddler to read or praising their one-year-old for counting to ten. This is not real life. This is social media. And it’s worth thinking about what’s happening the other side of that camera, or either side of the video being taken, when content has to be curated, edited, and perfected to be audience-ready. It’s not a real benchmark – and you don’t need to compare yourself to anyone anyway.

The very fact that you’re reading this, wondering about your child’s development and looking forward to all these milestones shows what a good parent you are. You’re engaged, you care, and you’re trying your best. That’s enough. We promise.

So this month, instead of giving yourself a hard time for all the things you haven’t done that parents on social media have, remind yourself you are a human being, not a human doing. And right now you’re busy being in your parenting-a-toddler era, whatever that looks like.

Developmental milestones are guides – not deadlines. If your toddler isn’t ‘keeping up’ with your friends’ toddlers, it isn’t an immediate cause for concern. Every child develops at their own pace. That being said, your health visitor and GP are there to support you with any queries you might have and will always be happy to see you with your child if you have any worries.