At this stage in your child's development, he or she is transforming from a baby into a toddler. Over the next six months your child will continue to focus on learning how to walk and speak. It may be a bit stressful, and you'll definitely have to childproof your home, but it will also be very exciting to see him or her improve and observe their progress.

What your child can see, hear and feel:

In terms of his or her development, your child may not be gaining new skills, but will focus on improving what they already know how to do. Your child is busy learning how to walk more steadily and how to run.

He or she is also becoming better at learning how to match objects together and developing basic problem-solving techniques. For example, if your child's toy gets stuck under the table or couch, before now it is possible that he or she used to cry until you went and got it back for them. Now, it's possible that they will walk or crawl to the disappeared object and try to get it again.

This shows that your child's attention span has improved and you will notice that he or she has been paying attention to how you do certain things. He or she will try to interact with dolls or stuffed animals in familiar ways.

Social and emotional development:

If you have been consistently presenting rules to your child, you should continue in this way so that he or she will continue to understand concepts such as good versus bad behavior. These rules can become a bit more complicated, but not much more so that he or she won't understand.

Your child may still be confusing 'no' with 'yes,' and it may be his or her favorite word for a while. This is especially true if you are always telling him or her 'no.' Don't worry though, because your child with grow out of it, and understand the concepts behind these words soon!

He or she may still want to stick around with you and other adults instead of their peers, this is normal until they decide that hanging out with children their own age is much more fun. In a group settling it's important to know whether your child will throw a tantrum if he or she is not getting enough attention. If they're jealous because they don't feel like everyone is focused on him or her, then you may need to calm them down.

Gross motor skills:

If your child hasn't already started to climb stairs, this stage is around the right time for them to try. It's very important to make sure you are around when your child is learning how to climb the stairs. They will start slowly, first by putting one foot on a stair and then the other, because their legs are still too short to climb the average set of stairs comfortably. Also, they're still learning how to deal with climbing the stairs in general. So keep an eye on your child, provide a hand to hold and encourage them! Baby-proofing the house at this stage is also totally necessary.

Fine motor skills:

Your child will be improving his or her fine motor skills with scribbles. Scribbling, making lines, circles and lots of weird-looking interpretations of all of those will appear everywhere if you don't supervise the walls, the crayons, and your child. It might be frustrating to have to be so vigilant, but if you want crayon-free walls, it's pretty important to supervise your child. On the plus side, he or she is learning how to use their hands and the sophisticated muscle movements needed to learn how to write!

Your child might also like sticking objects, one on top of the other, arrange things, and build towers! Watching your child build towers is fun, but don't be surprised if they don't end up being very tall. At this point your child should be able to get the hang of simple puzzles or shape sorters. Also more supervision is (still) necessary. He or she will still choke on small toy and parts.

Speech and language development:

By the time your child turns two, he or she should know at least 50 words. They should also be able to put two or three words together to form simple sentences, like 'want cookie,' 'go up' or 'mama go bye-bye.'

If he or she is pronouncing words differently than you do, it's a good idea to stick to repeating the incorrect word. Don't draw attention the mistake they just made, but make sure that he or she hears it said again properly.

24-month milestones

• Gives toys when asked
• Recognizes a familiar picture and know if it is upside down
• Kicks a large ball
• Turns pages in a book (two or three at a time)
• Uses two or three words together, such as "more juice"
• Walks alone
• Pulls toys behind him or her while walking
• Carries large toy or several toys while walking
• Begins to run
• Stands on tiptoe
• Climbs onto and down from furniture unassisted
• Walks up and down stairs holding on to support
• Scribbles on his or her own
• Turns over container to pour out contents
• Builds tower of four blocks or more
• Might use one hand more often than the other
• Able to put on simple clothes without help (often better at removing clothes than putting them on)
• Able to communicate needs such as thirst, hunger, need to use the restroom
• Can understand a 2-step command ("give me the ball and then get your shoes")
• Increased attention span
• Vision fully developed
• Vocabulary has increased to about 50 - 300 words (healthy children's vocabulary can vary widely)
• Finds objects even when hidden under two or three covers
• Begins to sort by shapes and colors
• Begins make-believe play
• Imitates behavior of others, especially adults and older children
• More aware of him- or herself as separate from others
• More excited about company of other children
• Demonstrates increasing independence
• Begins to show defiant behavior
• Separation anxiety increases toward midyear then fades
• Points to object or picture when it's named for him
• Recognizes names of familiar people, objects, and body parts
• Says several single words (by 15 to 18 months)
• Uses simple phrases (by 18 to 24 months)
• Uses 2- to 4-word sentences
• Follows simple instructions
• Repeats words overheard in conversation