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8 min
Your little one is ticking off milestones left and right now. In the six months leading up to their second birthday, those day-to-day developments may be less noticeable, but when you take a step back and consider where they were a year ago it’s almost like they’re a different child. It’s perfectly normal to feel a kind of grief around those baby days – there’s no going back to that time now and parenting a toddler is a totally different ballgame. But this too shall pass, and five years from now you’ll look back on these toddler days with just as much fondness – and perhaps less baby-brained fogginess.
Big and small movements are still being added to your toddler’s skills list. By two, your little one will be able to run, kick and throw a ball, walk up and down the stairs (holding on to the banister!) and stand on tiptoe. Their play will include simple jigsaw puzzles, ride-on and pull-along toys, building towers of stacking blocks (and knocking them down again), colouring and painting, and more. They still love repetition, so if they find something they love to do – or a skill they are trying to master – they will do it over and over again.
The fine motor skills they’ve been developing through play are especially useful at mealtimes. By two, your little one will probably be able to feed themselves with a fork as well as a spoon. Some children take longer to master this one than others, but persevere and they will get there eventually!
Between 18 and 24 months, your toddler’s cognitive development is incredible. Their vocabulary is growing, along with their self-awareness. They might talk about themselves more, using words to tell you what they want instead of just pointing and shouting. They might also recognise photos of themselves, and be able to name other familiar people, animals and objects if you show them photo albums and books. Your little one is also beginning to make more sense of the world. They can sort toys into types and by colour, and will notice if you sort things wrong or misname an object or animal.
As their ability to communicate improves, you’d hope to see a decline in those frustration-led tantrums . But sadly there’s still a lot that’s outside your toddler’s control, which means there’s still plenty for them to rage about! This too shall pass. Children of this age have a relatively short attention span, so for now you should be able to distract them from their troubles.
Your toddler’s imagination is also growing, which means they might now engage in pretend play. In practice, this might involve you doing a lot of the heavy lifting, but your little one will love watching you and might join in your game, or take it up by themselves when you’re otherwise occupied. For some reason, toddlers love a pretend phone call – either on a real phone or a stand-in, like a banana! You can have a lot of fun pretending to chat away to nanny and granddad, or Father Christmas, or Elsa – whoever you like really!
As they grow older, you might also see them preferring particular people to play alongside. They’re still not quite developmentally able to play with other children, but they might now be able to share a play station quite happily and pass each other objects. This could be the start of some beautiful friendships!
By two years old, most children will be in a settled routine with minimal night waking and one nap per day. They may have phased out milk altogether, or be down to just one pre-bedtime or breakfast feed – though breastfed toddlers may continue feeding more frequently for longer. Some children are happy eaters and tuck into three hearty meals per day, while others still find eating a bit of a bore and want to get down from the table as quickly as possible and then be hungry half an hour later. This is definitely ‘pick your battles’ territory. You really want to avoid food becoming fraught with negative emotions if possible, so play with mealtimes to see if you can find a better time to get the food into them.
It can be tempting to keep your little one distracted during mealtimes in the hopes they’ll stay happy for long enough that you can push some food into their mouths. But introducing tablets or TV to the dinner table is a tough habit to break, and not recommended.
Government advice is to keep screen time for 2-year-olds strictly to occasions where it promotes bonding and conversation – for example, looking at digital photos together, or video-calling friends and family. Screen time at meals is not recommended because it distracts children from listening to their body’s hunger cues, which for some children can lead to overeating and for others might mean they don’t eat as much as they need.
Instead, entertainment can come from dinner table games like I Spy, chatting with the family, telling stories, or some background music.
Between 18 and 24 months, your little one will probably be ready to move from a cot to a bed . How do you know when they’re ready? A big cue is when they start trying to climb out of their cot. Better to put them in a bed they can escape safely than a cot that might lead to accidents.
Many cots turn into beds simply by removing the sides. This is a relatively easy transition to manage because everything more or less feels and smells the same. You can add a bed guard if you’re worried about your little one rolling out in the night.
If you need a whole new bed, it’s best to go for a single – it will last you longer – and still add a bed guard if you need.
You might like to make a big deal of the occasion – new bed, new duvet, new pillow – in the hopes it will encourage your toddler to stay in their bed all night long. For some children, this really does work – though others will see the opportunity for escape and take it. Think about whether you need to add additional stair gates to prevent your little one escaping out of their room and into danger.
Other tips for getting your child to stay in their bed include:
At 18 months, your little one will have a booster of the 6-in-1 vaccine and a dose of the MMRV vaccine. The 6-in-1 vaccine protects them against diphtheria, hepatitis B, Haemophilus influenzae type B, polio, tetanus and whooping cough and this marks the fourth dose (given to children born after July 2024). MMRV was first given at 12 months (to children born on or after 1 January 2025) and replaces the MMR vaccine to help protect your little one against measles, mumps, rubella and chicken pox.
Are these vaccines getting easier or harder? This is the last one for a while – the next regular injections are the pre-school ones at 3 years and 4 months. From age two onwards, your child will also be able to have a free flu vaccine, but that’s a nasal spray and tends to be less distressing!
Between 2 and 2.5 years old, your little one will also have another review with the health visitor. As at the 9 – 12 month review, they will send a questionnaire for you to fill in before the appointment so that when you go the health visitor has a good picture of where your child is at.
By now you’ve probably established a totally new baseline for ‘ok’ compared to your pre-parenting life. Now you can be ‘ok’ after six hours of broken sleep, having yoghurt thrown over you at breakfast, and a disrupted workday after a call from the nursery to pick up a poorly child. But all of this ‘coping’ can be exhausting, and it really is worthwhile scheduling in time for yourself, so you don’t hit burnout. Symptoms of burnout include:
Taking time for yourself and setting clear boundaries with your loved ones and work is one way to help avoid burnout. Exercise and healthy eating will also help, as will doing activities you enjoy – whatever that might be. It can feel really selfish to put your needs above others like this, but the whole ‘can’t pour from an empty cup’ thing is true. You can’t be the parent you want to be if you don’t spend time keeping yourself well.
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.
