13th to 16th Month Guide

Click here to see our selection of Baby and Toddler products.

13th to 16th Month Guide After your baby turns a year old, there are many changes that can take place. From the 13th month, through the 16th month, your baby can learn a variety of new skills and abilities, as well as experience many physical changes. While things may be a little more difficult than you expected them to be (after all, you always hear about the “terrible twos,” but no one mentions that this behavior usually starts around the age of one), these times can also be very enjoyable.

Read below to learn as much as you can about what to expect during the next four months and how to deal with those things when they occur.

Physical Development and Appearance

During the first four months of your baby’s second year, your baby can do many things. Most babies are walking during the beginning of this time, and even those who aren’t will most likely be walking by the 16th month. Whenever your baby starts walking, a whole new world opens up to them. This can be wonderful for your baby: it enables him to learn as much as possible through exploration. However, this can also be a trying age because this new world that your baby enters is filled with injury-prone items and places. Your baby can get up stairs (which means he can fall back down them) and he can climb onto the couch (which means he can fall back off), and he can run (which means the ground hits a little harder when he falls). This can cause parents to chase their toddlers around constantly, trying to prevent any sort of injury.

While it does help to try your best to prevent any harm from reaching your baby, it is just as important that you realize that you will not be able to prevent all injuries. And, this is just the beginning. The older your baby becomes, the more independence he will need, and therefore the more risks he will take. So it is important for parents to realize when their baby gets hurt that, as long as they are doing their best to prevent it from happening, it is not their fault and these things happen.

During the 13th to 16th months, your baby will likely be steadily losing some of his baby fat. This happens due to their increased activity and decreased formula or breast milk. This is to be expected, and as long as you take your baby to the doctor for his regular check-ups to know for sure that there are no problems, your baby is probably in the average range. The average weight for a baby between 13-16 months old is 22-24 pounds. Your baby could easily be off this mark by a couple of pounds and still be considered of average weight.
Your baby can learn many new tasks and you can actually sit h

im down and teach them to him. This is a time of much fun for parents and babies because he can play with you more than he ever could before.

Care for Baby

• Bathing—bath time may change drastically during this few-month period, because your baby will likely want to play even more than before. She has likely learned the fun of splashing, and of standing, crawling and laying in the water. This means that your work may very well increase at this point when bath time arrives.

Just as with the previous months, it is important to stress the safety issues more than anything else. Your baby can understand much more than before, but he won’t be able to understand any one point if you are trying to teach him ten points at the same time. This means that if your baby splashes and it bothers you because water gets everywhere (probably all over you as well), and your baby stands up in the tub, you should pick the most important point and worry solely about it for a while. Yes, it is a pain to clean up after your baby splashes a tub full of water onto the bathroom floor, and it is very irritating that you have to change clothes after bathing your baby due to them being wet, but at least this can’t cause him to slip and hit his head.

• Discipline—at this age, and usually for a long time afterwards, parents will have to pick their battles. It can be very difficult to teach a toddler of this age the difference between right and wrong and the difference between safe things and activities and unsafe ones. There aren’t a whole lot of options when it comes to disciplining a baby. You can’t exactly do as you would when they are older, such as taking away fun activities or toys. Your little one will simply not understand this concept for a few years, and so it is pointless to try this method.

Since this is the case, you must pick your battles. Just like with bathing, you can’t teach your child and punish them for activities if you are concerned with everything they are doing. Your baby can only learn so much as one time, and if he is doing several activities and is removed from the situation, he will not be able to learn that one or all of them was wrong. Instead, you have to focus on the most important one and only remove your baby when he does that one—and it is best to only do this with things that are dangerous to him. Since the whole point of any kind of discipline for a baby of this age is to teach your baby to stay out of harm, you should try other methods as much as possible. Why sit your baby in time out if you don’t have to? See below for more information about keeping your baby safe and teaching him to stay that way.

• Keeping your baby safe—this is something that you have had to do your baby’s whole life, but it suddenly becomes a little more complicated. Babies are intrigued by things they aren’t supposed to have or be around, and this is how they learn about the world. Since you know this is the case, the absolute best way to keep your baby safe is to limit the availability of dangerous items and situations. You should baby-proof your house as best as possible using outlet covers, baby gates, etc. and you should keep all cords from hanging within baby’s reach. There are many things that you will need to adjust for baby-proofing that you may not have had to do before. For example, you may need to scoot coffee pots and other appliances to the back of the counter so your new walker can’t reach them. This is something that you can do to prevent injury without even having to teach your child not to mess with it. And you should do as much of this as possible.
Other things, however, such as a fan that sits on the floor, might not be so easy to keep away from your baby. In this situation, you should try to keep your baby safe from it as much as possible by always watching closely when she is in the same room with something like this. Then, if your baby gets near it, you can remove her and tell her “no” in a stern voice. Your baby will likely head right back to it, simply because the more you tell her she can’t have something, the more she will want it. You can also try to distract her with other things, and this can work well for a while. If your baby refuses to stay away from something harmful, you can put her in a playpen or some other stationary place (which most babies absolutely hate at this age) to sit her in time out.

While it may take several times of doing this to be able to teach her that she will receive punishment for going near the fan, it can actually work. The trick to properly teaching your baby at this age is to pay attention to what your baby can understand and what she can’t. The first time you tell your baby not to touch the fan, or you tell your baby that you will make her sit in time out, she will likely not understand. By talking to your baby constantly while trying to teach her, you will allow her to learn what these things mean. Then, eventually, she will stop going near the fan. After this point, you will be able to tell her what to expect if she continues to do something and she can understand it.

Once you have reached this point with your baby, you will be able to teach her many different ways to be safe, but you should always know that, just because she understands not to do something, this does not mean she will follow what you teach her. You should continue to keep your home as safe for baby as possible and you should always keep a close eye on your toddler.

• Tooth care—your baby will likely want to brush his own teeth at this age, and there is no harm in letting him do this. To make sure they are clean, you can simply brush them again once your baby has finished. You may want to use only half the toothpaste you normally would for each time—this way your baby won’t eat twice as much toothpaste as before. You should also make sure that you are using baby toothpaste and a baby toothbrush. You should brush your baby’s teeth now as much as you will when he is older. You should brush them at least twice a day and after every meal if possible. Anytime your baby has some sort of food or drink that is especially sugary or leaves color on their teeth and tongue, you should brush your baby’s teeth immediately afterwards if you can. This includes many juices or kool-aid, as well as suckers and other types of candy. While this may lead you to brush your baby’s teeth quite often, it will be worth it when your baby doesn’t have to deal with the pain of cavities later. Also, if you give your baby carbonated beverages, you should give him the kind that are sugar-free. This is one excellent way to help prevent cavities later (as well as prevent a very hyper child).

• Eating—most limitations will have been lifted about foods by the time your baby reaches this age. This includes forbidden foods such as honey and egg whites. Peanuts, however, may be something you will want to wait on until your baby is at least two. This will help keep your baby safe in case he has an allergic reaction to them. When a two year old has an allergic reaction, it is much easier to tell than when a one year old does. Most two year olds can tell you if their stomach hurts or if their throat feels funny, and a one year old may not be able to tell you this.

• Diapers—while you are probably extremely tired of changing diapers, you still have quite a while before you can tell those diapers goodbye. Most parents find that they aren’t successful in potty training until the baby is at least 18 months, so you may still want to wait to avoid unnecessary frustration.

Experiences

• Toys for this age—the options are extremely varied at this age for toys. Your baby will still probably enjoy toys that make noise or light up, and may especially like toys that dance and sing. Many babies at this age are learning to dance themselves (even if it is just bouncing up and down or rocking back and forth), and so they tend to love these types of toys.
Another entertainment device that babies of this age often love is television. Although it isn’t a toy, this is the age in which babies, once they discover it, love to watch certain shows. If you expose your baby to educational shows that are meant for babies of this age, they will often like them. Since babies are usually drawn to the bright colors and characters, there are many to choose from that your baby will likely love. Your baby can’t love a show, or want to watch a show, that he has never seen or heard of before, so you should take advantage of this opportunity to choose which television programs you want to let your baby watch.

Some babies will sit at this age and watch a long movie if it’s fun enough, while other babies may sit still for only a minute. This is just one of the many ways in which babies in this age group will display their personalities and preferences.
• Bottle Breaking/Breast Breaking/Pacifier Breaking—while some parents managed to accomplish this during the twelfth month, or even before that, many parents don’t do it until around this age (some even do it later than this). Whenever you choose to break your baby from anything they have had for such a long time, it can be difficult. This is often why parents put it off for a while—they do not want to endure the sleepless nights they fear they may face when they do.

Just remember that, when you do decide to break your baby from something like this, it will very possibly not be as difficult as you thought it would be. You should be prepared for the worst, which could mean a week or two of sleepless nights, but know that it won’t last any longer than that. And, once you have broken your baby from these things, you won’t ever have to do it again.

• Parents—this time in your baby’s life can bring with it much more joy than you would have thought possible. Your baby will display independence—which may very well be irritating many times, your baby will likely display decision-making skills—these won’t always be great which is why you have to begin early teaching him how to make the right ones, your baby will begin talking and can communicate with your more effectively—the more you talk and read to your baby, the more true this becomes. There are many other things that your baby will begin to do during this time period. At this age, there can be such a difference in what some babies do as opposed to others, that it is extremely important to not compare your babies to others. While parents tend to forget this rather easily and always want to know where their baby fits in when related to babies his age, it is not the best thing to do. Instead, you should focus on what your baby can do, and try to expand on that and continue to teach him.

Baby girl apparel, gifts and accessories

Baby bedding \| Baby apparel \| Baby toys \| Baby clothes \| Shipping \| Search \| Shopping cart \| Parenting information \| Parenting message board \| Site map