10 Developmental Milestones of a 2 Year (24 Month) Old Baby

At the second year milestone, children undergo extensive growth and development across several aspects: physical, cognitive, emotional, and social skills. Toddlers usually gain autonomy and interest at this stage when they begin to walk and engage with the environment.

Familiarity with the general 2 year old developmental milestone changes can enable caregivers to create optimum conditions for such development. This article will further consider the milestones for children's physiology, language, emotions, and social behaviour and a few tips to help foster these skills.

Around this age, children have acquired essential motor, language, and social skills. Most of these children can walk and run with more coordination and can even master stairs with some support. Their vocabulary grows quickly, and they like to repeat what they hear.

At this stage, toddlers have many emotional responses and tend to get angry and frustrated easily. Children can use gross and fine motor muscles and scribble the activity, stack simple blocks one on the other, or use a spoon at mealtimes.

Physical Milestones for a 2 year old:

• Walking and Running: Most 2 year olds can walk well and even start running. However, their coordination may still need to be developed.
• Kicking and Throwing: They attempt to kick the ball with better control and throw things with little to no accuracy but resources.
• Climbing and Jumping: Starts climbing on walls, furniture, and other objects and attempting to jump off the grounds with both feet.
• Coordination and Body Awareness: Children learn that moving their bodies in specific ways will help them accomplish goals like opening a bottle.
• Fine Motor Skills: Grasps crayons on paper, makes random shapes, and can balance a few cubes on each other.
• Gross Motor: Holds up one's head, walks alone, runs easily, and walks upstairs while assisted.

Visual Milestones:

Here are the critical visual milestones that a 2 year baby achieves:

• Recognition of Familiar Objects and People: Children can recognise people's faces and identify specific objects.
• Improved Depth Perception: Enhanced ability to judge distances apart. This also incorporates activities like climbing and running.
• Hand-Eye Coordination: Improve skills in stacking blocks, scribbling, or putting different shapes into the puzzles.

Hearing Milestones:

Here are the critical hearing milestones that a 2 year baby achieves:

• Responding to Name: Responds to one's name and common phrases or cue words all the time.
• Imitating Sounds: A toddler likes to make many sounds and words they hear from their environment and people.
• Interest in Music: A child still learning these basic skills can be fascinated with music and try to mimic it by dancing or singing along to songs.

Smell Milestones:

Here are the critical smell milestones that a 2 year baby achieves:

• Familiar Scent Identification: At this age, children can associate smells with particular objects, such as food or specific caregivers, that help them feel secure.
• Scent Resonance: Children might enjoy odours from blossoms and yummy foods but dislike pungent, strong smells.

Touch Milestones:

Here are the key touch milestones that a 2 year baby achieves:

• Texture Exploration: By the age of 2 years, children start appreciating various textures where they either enjoy soft toys or cannot stand rough or tacky ones.
• Self-comforting Touch: Touch, including soft toys or special blankets, is still a source of comfort and self-soothing for young children.
• Curiosity: Children move on to more than just visual exploration and assert much of their curiosity through touching.

Sleep Milestones for a 2 year old:

• Nap Transition: Toddlers go from two naps to approximately one, usually taken in the afternoon and lasting about 1-2 hours.
• Bedtime Routine: Creating a pre-bedtime schedule allows the toddler to relax, and the child will find it easy to sleep independently with minimal fuss.
• Sleep Regression: A sleep regression happens when a child who has been sleeping well previously starts to wake up frequently at night or in the daytime.
• Need for Comfort: Though other caregivers seeking comfort at bedtime may lessen the toddler's dependency on the parent at night, Bedtime remains necessary.

Feeding Milestones for a 2 year old:

• Food preferences: They are also known to take sides when it comes to food and may sometimes be picky about the kinds of food they consume, especially children.
• Appetite fluctuations: The children’s appetite is not constant. Even amidst busy schedules, routines are expected to help their appetite in a week or some days.
• Nutrient needs: Children must also be educated on essential feeding practices, which involve consuming every possible food group in a more balanced meal.
• Motor skills development: Using very basic tools such as a spoon and fork eases fine motor skills, which is beneficial in hand-eye coordination tasks.

Here are key cognitive milestones for a 2 year old:

• Problem Solving: They can figure out simple problems, such as how to get a toy that's just out of their reach.
• Memory Development: Toddlers begin recognising the faces, things, or activities around them.
• Cause and Effect Understanding: They begin learning simple cause and effect several actions; for example, if a button is pushed, a toy's light goes on.
• Object Permanence: They completely understand that things do not cease to exist just because they are not presently visible.

Social Development Milestone for a 2 year old:

Around this age, the child experiences an essential aspect of self-development in the 2nd year of developmental milestones. Children at this age develop socially and learn to interact with people and other surroundings.

• Interest in Others: They become more interested in the company of other children and can also participate in parallel play.
• Emerging Empathy: At this age, children begin to pay attention to other people's feelings, so they act concerned when someone is unhappy and try to help.
• Independence and Autonomy: Children also want to do more things by themselves, including dressing up, feeding themselves, and making decisions.
• Understanding Social Norms: They start to grasp some of the simplest aspects of social behaviour, such as using words like 'sorry' while apologising.
• Developing Relationships: They also form bonds with mothers and other familiar persons, show them feelings, and seek refuge in their presence.

Emotional Milestones for a 2 year old:

Children become increasingly adept at managing an emotional scope and learning to express various emotions in the two year old developmental milestones. As these kids develop socially, they also improve in showing their emotional thoughts:

• Expressing Feelings: At this age, children have a considerable level of emotional involvement and can show several emotions, such as joy, sorrow, and wrath.
• Clinging and Tears: Caregivers and children have strong bonds, and children may fear being away from their caregivers and experience separation anxiety.
• Outbursts and Anger: Toddlers are in the process of emotional regulation, which tends to be inadequate. This can lead to anger and many tantrums.
• The Instinct to Comfort: When overstressed, two-year-old children always seek comfort from someone they know or clutch a beloved belonging to feel safe.

Speech Development Milestones for a 2 year old:

• Vocabulary Growth: Most developing toddlers at this age can use around 50-100 words and become good at learning new ones.
• Simple Sentences: Students combine 2-3 words to make simple sentences, such as "want milk" or "more play."
• Understanding Instructions: Some toddlers can also obey simple commands or requests, such as “pick up the toy.”
• Imitating Speech: They like to return words they heard from adults, which helps them learn language.

1. Building with Blocks

2. Drawing and Colouring

3. Story Time

4. Puzzles

5. Dancing to Music

6. Outdoor Exploration

7. Sorting Game

8. Playdough Fun

1. Encourage Exploration

2. Help Them Develop Language

3. Play With Them

4. Honor Progress

Regression in Speech Development:

Lack of Gross and Fine Motor Skills:

Problems with Hearing:

Emotional and Behavioural Problems:

Smugness/Regression:

Long-lasting Feeding Problems:

Not Taking to Imaginative Play: