Eighteen Months Old – No Longer My Baby Boy

Snappy is eighteen months old this week.

He’s definitely not a baby anymore but a little boy whose personality becomes more and more defined every day much to my delight and occasional despair. He changed so much from age 0 to twelve months but not the changes are less drastic and more gradual. Things improve and increase rather than change. He’s definitely who he is right now, and adds to it daily. We’re due to see the health visitor once he’s over his cough and cold (so he’s in a better mood) as he slept through his fifteen month check up and we want to make sure he is still on track (as far as she’s concerned). I trust her judgement seeing as she’s been doing this for twenty years, was my niece and nephews health visitor and has teenagers herself.

So here’s a little run down of my little croc.

Behaviour

He’s still a stubborn little guy. One of his favourite words is Na, (welsh for no) or Na, Na, Na. He doesn’t say yes at all, his way of saying yes when he wants something or needs something is to give us this little laugh instead. He’s generally a good boy though still somewhat clingy at times and, well stubborn, at others.

He can be willfully naughty too. Even when told to stop (and we know he understands) he will carry on with something until he decides to stop or we remove him or the item he’s being naughty with. We’ve been teaching him not to grab our hair or glasses since he was old enough to grab. And he had learnt this lesson until the past few months when he started pulling hair again and grabbing our glasses.

He’s a pretty happy guy most of the time, smiling and adorably so. It helps him get away with far too much. He’s very loving too, freely giving away kisses and he hugs various toys he’s holding. He calls his nanna every day to talk to her or leave a message on her answer machine. He spent all day yesterday saying ‘bye bye Poppy’ after his cousin stayed over for the weekend.

Language

At fifteen months he was saying five or six words and mostly babbling but now he has a huge vocabulary and when you ask him to say something he can usually repeat it. He speaks a mix of Welsh and English, we talk to him in both languages at him – and as much Welsh as possible. He can’t always make a k sound so a lot of his words like car or ‘crocadilo’ are ‘dar’ and ‘dordilo’. his

His favourite phrase is ‘bye bye lorry’ and no. He is also calling me ‘bow‘ right now (rhyming with ow), though we’re not quite sure why. He also says ‘oh boy’ when he’s excited too and we’re not sure where he picked that up from either. I say it very, very sporadically and now he says it all the time.

Potty Training

We started potty training a few months ago, just a slow start off. My wife doesn’t want him to be one of those kids that goes to school not being able to use the toilet, so starting early is important. Better than just waiting until he’s three. It was going well, he was actually using the potty and sitting on it every day but his interest has dropped off so we’re taking it slow and seeing how it goes.

Food

He still will mostly eat breakfast and breakfast-related foods. He also eats a lot of fruit, as much as he can get his hands on. More if you don’t watch him carefully enough. We cut grapes up for him but give him whole bananas. He will happily eat cold porridge and toast at any time of day. He also likes unexpected things like mustard and curry. He eats a lot of beans and toast, or beans on toast.

At dinner time we’ve found the most effective way to get him to eat his dinner is to ignore him. Sounds harsh, but if we’re looking away or busy talking to one another he will eat. He will also dip his cutlery and food into his milk, or pour his milk on his food, but he will eat. Telling him to eat just results in more food thrown on the floor at the cats.

He really likes to drink both milk and water. We go through a lot of milk between him drinking it and making his breakfast porridge or cereal. He also drinks a lot of water and his first two-word sentence was ‘dwr ble’ – welsh for where water? One morning he drank so much water he threw it all back up again. Less than stellar way to start the day.

Likes and Dislikes

He has definite interests now other than being attracted to pretty lights and bright fish. He really likes lorries, and before he was saying bye bye to people he was saying bye, bye lorry all the time. He still says bye bye lorry a lot. His favourite thing is watching the binmen come on a Friday to get the rubbish and recycling. They wave to him now. He also likes to watch videos of remote control lorries on youtube.

He really likes having the radio on or music. He insists on having the radio turned on as soon as he’s done with breakfast. He likes to sing and dance too, which is good cause I’ve put him on the list of dance classes already.

Recently I’ve started reading him a story before bedtime. He gets into his pyjamas and then gets snuggly with BoBo and Peebles by pulling the duvet up over himself. Then I’ll read him a story from a book. Tonight he enjoyed story time so much he said ‘nos da stori’ – good night story. This makes me very happy because as you know both my wife and I are big readers.

The Next Stage

My hope for the next six months is to start getting him to share more and use the potty again. He isn’t big on sharing right now. He’s good as handing you things when you ask for them, and he’s just started to say ‘plis‘ – please –  when promoted and diolch – thankyou but he’s not so great so great at sharing. He will let the kids as playgroup play with his bike but he has to be convinced to let you have some of his water or food. This is going to be extra important when we have a second child.

I also want him to treat the cats a bit better. He loves them dearly and gives them nice ‘swses a cwtches‘ – hugs and kisses but he also chases them, hits them and pulls on their fur when he’s overexcited. He can get a bit overexcited and be a bit rough with everything. I need to learn Welsh for hitting, biting and throwing soon.

Hopefully, in the next six months, there will be more teeth too. Right now he has two and a third making it’s slow way out. He has the bottom two in place and seems to be growing a tooth every three months. At this rate, he’ll be in school by the time he’s done and losing them again. Apparently, this is normal, some kids take their time with teeth and we all can agree that less teething is a good thing.

8 Replies to “Eighteen Months Old – No Longer My Baby Boy

  1. Saying ‘nos da stori’ is so precious! I can’t wait until my son starts talking but at the same time I want him to stay a baby as long as possible. Great update – he sounds like a lovely little boy.

  2. Seeing them.grown is amazing. Our first was raised in Paris for the first few years so he feew up hearing 2 languages and we read some really interesting articles about devwlipment of bilingual children and how thwy approach any problem in later life uniquely

  3. I know how you feel but he’ll always be your baby boy. Even at nearly 9 Ieuan still wants a cuddle although he won’t always hold my hand when we walk to school. I remember well what he was like at 18 months. It seems a lifetime ago now.

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