My son is like that too. He talked, just not a lot and not many sentences until he was a couple months shy of 3, then he started to talk more.
It’s most noticable to me because since last summer the phone conversations I have with him (I call home when I’m on my way from work) have gone from “Hi… yes… BYE!” to “Hi Mommy! I watching Franklin!/I go preschool!/I have apple! Love you. Bye!” The conversations definitely aren’t so one-sided anymore, just last night he decided he was going to read one of my stories to me so we sat on my bed with him holding a paperback upside down and telling me a story about all of us.
He’s definitely more action than talk though. Started crawling at about 8 months and took his first steps a week shy of his first birthday. He’s hardly stopped since.
Our kids are two days apart in age…yeah, he yells. If I take him away from something he’s doing or if he’s trying to open a door that’s childproofed shut, he’s very vocal about his frustrations. It is exactly like he’s giving us a piece of his mind. He also crawls over to stuff (like the trash can), waits for us to look at him, then starts trying to disassemble it, cheekily grinning the whole time. He’s a menace!
I have twins. The boy started crawling at about 9 or 10 months. He did it incrementally; at first he could only move a few feet, but he got better and better at it. At one year the girl still wasn’t crawling. Our pediatrician checked her over and pronounced her healthy, and said we didn’t need to worry as long as she started by 15 months. The very next day she was crawling from one end of the house to the other! She started walking about a month after that, but it took the boy until about 14 months to catch up – he was such an efficient crawler that it took a while until the girl could walk faster than he could crawl. Now they’re almost 3, and pretty much speaking in complete sentences, often with correct verb tenses.
OH, yeah. She also “yelled” at her monkey puppets about that age. A bit later, she started giving her dolly “time-outs” for serious infractions.
What’s really cute is to watch them on the phone. She’ll tuck the handset into her shoulder and babblespeak intently, with inflections and pauses. Then she’ll reach for a pen, make some scribbles, babblespeak some more, nod, and then say, “OK, bye!” before hanging up! My son, back when we had one of those 15-foot corded phones, would walk around the house, picking toys up and “putting them away” while chatting on the phone, then he’d stand there with one hip cocked out and twirl the cord like a jump rope. Yep, exactly what I’d do when on the phone.
Having toddlers is like looking into a little mirror!
She did that to me a couple of days ago! As she was crawling over to the entertainment center when it wasn’t barricaded, she got close enough to touch it, turned around to look at me, saw the stern look on my face, grinned and proceeded to touch the glass.
What a little shit, eh? I can’t help thinking it’s cute, but soon it won’t be.
ETA: WhyNot, that’s so cute! I can’t wait for her to mimick things I do. I just don’t know what I do that’s mimickable.
My nieces got a new kitchen playset for Christmas. The best part appeared to be the cordless phone–which “rang” frequently. I loved the way that the niece who is not yet two would pick up the phone, say “bring bring” then say hello, and babble at it.
Ohmigosh, my daughter does that…everything is lined up all the time. The other day, she climbed up and swiped a basket of sippy cup lids off the countertop. I found the lids all lined up on the floor of the living room, with one of her ponytail holders around each spout. I swear, I don’t know how she comes up with these ideas.
My daughter started crawling at 6 months and walking at 11 months. I don’t know when her first words were as I couldn’t tell if she was saying something or just making noises (besides the fact that she was learning two languages and I could never tell when she was saying something in the second language, I still can’t sometimes). I started to actually pick out words just after 12 months but it wasn’t until she was almost 2 that she could communicate more effectively with multiple words.
My son just turned three months and hates tummy time so I expect he’ll be later at crawling and walking. He’s also a lot bigger (he’s as big as she was at 9 months) and thus has more weight to gain control over. He seems to like to communicate more than his older sister (he’s been smiling, laughing, cooing for quite a while now) so maybe he’ll start talking earlier than his older sister and the physical/social skills development will be switched for the two of them.
Her first word was a sentance “What’s that?” more like “Wassat?” to start with. That went on for about six months. I guess it was all she needed. She had figured out how to make adults talk on cue. Point to something and say, “Whassat?”
She started standing unassisted at 8 months, and walking a couple weeks after that. Picture with video clip
Talking? There was never one moment. At around 10 months, she was saying things like “ap” for “apple”, “om” for “come” when she grabbed us to follow her.
I would say at 16 months she really was in earnest, repeating things, pointing out things and saying their names, etc. Picture
They’re either possessed by a spirit, obsessive-compulsive, or they’re going to grow up to be architects or engineers. (Personally, I like the last option.)
I asked my son’s preschool teacher about it, and she said that he’s just trying to find some sort of order, and that he can make the decisions that go along with that. I think it’s somehow related to left-brain analytical thinking.
Hee, my almost 8 month old has those exact reactions too. I laughed out loud when I read your “ha ba da ba da” because that is exactly what she angrily yelled at me today the third time I told her to get away from the dog’s bowl. She has also yelled at the cat when he ignores her and at the coffee table when she bonked her head on its leg while crawling through.
And she does that “aw come on you don’t really mean no do ya” grin right before doing something she knows she’s not supposed to do. And yeah, so cute. I always have to turn away so she can’t see me trying to hide my giggles when I sternly say “I said no and I meant it!” You’re right - I bet it’s not cute for long…
Just today she scolded another baby for the first time! He’s a little 8 month old I babysit. He started to show too much interest in the DVD player, and she shook her index finger at him and said, “No no no no no!” Than, after I moved him away to distract him with a toy, she pushed the coffee table in front of the DVD player to keep him away - right where it used to live to keep her away!
I just have to add my two cents worth in these “comparative baby” threads. There’s such a wonderful wide variety of “normal”. My oldest daughter (now 30) didn’t walk until 18 months. As a new mom, it was rather frustrating having her so “far behind” her contemporaries. She was happy, healthy, delightful, and clearly had all the skills. She just wasn’t really interested in setting off across the room on her own–crawling or cruising around our little apartment was very efficient. Fortunately, I had a number of veteran parents and grandparents around who kept saying not to worry. So, my two cents worth–don’t worry too much about your baby’s time line. Of course, ask the doctor. But try not to worry.
<stepping down…>
What finally happened, you ask. Well, we finally got frustrated and tricked her. We took her outside and put one of those big crayola crayons in her cute little fist. She thought she was holding my finger. I walked along side her and then stopped. By the time she realized it, she was about 10 yards away from me. She laughed out loud. An hour later she was running…and I was questioning my sanity.
Another comment on competitive babies. My SiL is this way and it annoys me to no end. Just about all kids walk at 2 years old. No one looks at a 2-year old and can tell if they walked at 9 months or 19 months.
Serena, who had a difficult birth, started pysical therapy at 12 months and started walking at 18 months. now at 26 months, shes just starting to crawl.
Flodjunior, who has neuromuscular issues, started crawling at 15 months. Before that, he rolled to get where he wanted to go. Scared the daylights out of me several times, I can tell you that, because in his rather unorthodox way, he could move like greased lightning… After he fgigured out crawling, things really sped up, and he was walking just before he turned 18 months, which surprised his PT almost as much as it surprised us.
Totnak did the Commando Crawl thingie for a while from about eight and a half months, I think. I do remember that he was ten months almost to the day when he started crawling properly. I can remember this because I remember what finally encouraged him to get up onto hands and knees was the sight of that nifty Christmas tree with the big choo-choo train layout beneath… Capping this, he began walking properly at fourteen months, the day before the contractors arrived to remodel our kitchen. At least we know what motivates him.
Spencer is almost ten months, and just figured out real crawling this last Monday! In fact, just the other day, I posted this link to a YouTube video of him army crawling. He did that for about three weeks. Yesterday, he pulled himself up on the side of his play pen. Time to seriously baby-proof!
