What to Expect the Toddler Years (33 page)

It also makes sense to keep your pet out of the room when your toddler is eating. Otherwise, feeding will soon dissolve into frenzy, with more food ending up in (and on) your pet than in your toddler.

Pets need their shots, too; vaccinations must be kept up to date. Rabies is a threat not only in rural areas but also in suburbs; the disease gets passed to pets by skunks and raccoons. Cats as well as dogs can contract rabies, and once infected, can become more aggressive and can transmit the disease.

Being kind to animals makes for kinder animals. Disciplining your pet roughly can make him jittery and more apt to snap and sets a bad example for your toddler. Instead, treat a pet firmly but with respect. If possible (and if necessary), invest in obedience training.

“Our daughter started walking a week ago, but has suddenly gone back to crawling. Is something wrong?”

Development is often a one-step-forward, one-step-back process, particularly when it comes to a developmental milestone as major as walking. Your daughter’s sudden return to crawling can probably be attributed to one of the following factors:

Ambivalence about independence. Walking represents a big step toward growing up. As much as most toddlers crave independence and thrive on it, it can sometimes be a worrisome prospect.

Frustration. It takes patience—an attribute most toddlers have in short supply—to perfect walking. Frustration over frequent falls, slow speed, or an inability to turn a corner without bumping into it, may prompt a toddler to take to her knees again until her legs and feet have worked out their kinks.

A nasty fall. Taking a traumatic tumble can cause some cautious toddlers to think twice about getting back on their own two feet again. Until they recover their nerve, crawling may provide the most comforting route from here to there.

An unsettling change. A new child-care situation, a new sibling, a parent going back to work can bring on the kind of emotional stress that can bring back old, baby-like habits.

A new accomplishment. Often, a still-wobbly skill, such as walking, will be temporarily dropped while a toddler focuses her full attention on honing another, such as talking.

An upcoming cold or other minor illness. For a few days before the symptoms of a cold, flu, or other virus become apparent, children often suffer from a rundown feeling that keeps them from running around. In this case, walking, which is still a challenge, might well be dropped in favor of the more familiar and less stressful crawling.

A bad day. Everybody has them—and some toddlers have them quite often. Crankiness and fatigue can temporarily sap a toddler’s energy and dampen her enthusiasm for such physical feats as walking.

Of course, if your toddler doesn’t want to walk at all, is unusually irritable, or seems to be limping or unable to stand upright, check with her nurse-practitioner or doctor to make sure there is no physical problem, such as an undiagnosed injury or illness.

“For a while, our son was using a wide variety of words, but in the last week or so, he seems to be using fewer. Shouldn’t he be adding to his vocabulary instead of subtracting from it?”

It’s unlikely that your son is losing his vocabulary; he’s probably just busy gaining a new skill. Toddlers typically switch off between different kinds of acquisitions and accomplishments: One week they concentrate on verbal skills, the next week physical skills, the following week social skills, the week after that verbal skills again. Often, they’re so focused on polishing that skill-of-the-week that they neglect to practice the others.

It’s also possible that your child is taking the hiatus from speaking that many young toddlers take after they’ve mastered their first few words. The break allows beginning speakers the time they need to consolidate their gains and strengthen their receptive vocabularies (the words they understand), so that they can prepare to launch a whole new list of words.

It could be, too, that a change or disruption in your toddler’s routine or his life (a new baby-sitter, a new day-care situation, a vacation, a trip out of town taken by Mommy or Daddy) might have left him temporarily speechless. If this seems to be the case, some extra support and reassurance might quickly help get him speaking again.

Or, perhaps, he’s simply under too much parental pressure to verbalize. Pushing a toddler to add to his vocabulary is almost certain to trigger resistance. In that case, easing up on the pressure may well get him talking again.

If your toddler stops speaking entirely or doesn’t start adding new words to his vocabulary after a week or two, or if his sudden shrinking from speech is accompanied by lethargy, uncharacteristic crankiness, or other symptoms, seek medical advice. He may be ill or upset about something.

“Our fourteen-month-old seems to understand everything, but she only says a half-dozen words. Most of the time she just pushes, pulls, grunts in the direction of what she wants.”

It’s pretty remarkable how much a toddler can get across without uttering a recognizable word: Like a little cave-woman, she hauls Mom by the skirt into the kitchen, pushes Dad’s legs in the direction of the back door, grunts or nods in response to questions, points to things she wants. And as long as she’s actively trying to communicate, you can be impressed by your child’s ingenuity rather than worried about her plodding verbal progress.