I have an average child who is a central character in both of the novels I'm working on for NaNoWriMo this year. In the first novel she is a newborn and ages five years by the end. Then in my second novel she appears as a seven and a half year old. I'm no expert on children and before I turned to extensive research I wanted to see if some NaNoers could please answer a few questions for me! I'd really appreciate it!
Questions:
-When does a child usually start to speak? What is the extensiveness of their vocabulary at around the ages of one and two?
-When can a child easily walk on their own?
-What sorts of foods does a very young child/infant eat after breastfeeding (this is what the mother of the child in my story chooses to do)?
-How big is the average child when they're at the age of one? (It'd be beyond helpful if someone can give me basic sizes for a child aged one through seven!)
Thank you in advanced for anyone who can answer some or all of these questions for me! If I think of any more I'll be sure to add them. (:
Note from moderator: edited to create [TOPIC].
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Oct 26, 2008 - 22 43
Ooh, I had similar questions for a NaNo a few years ago. There's a great site that I used, that I think is still around...
*checks*
... aha! "http://www.babycenter.com/baby-milestones" This should answer pretty much any question you could ever think of, in great detail. :D
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"NaNoWriMo spares us from three evils; boredom, laziness and free time."
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Oct 27, 2008 - 02 19
Thank you so much! :D I'll definitely be checking it out!
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Oct 27, 2008 - 07 27
Hi, I'm an infant/toddler teacher. :D Now, I work with American children, in Appalachia, and my current class is all developmentally normal and mostly monolingual, but what I'm saying should apply to the average child.
To answer your questions in brief:
1)Children vary widely, but we usually expect a one-year-old to understand a fair bit and say little. At his first birthday he might say "mama" and "dada" and one or two other words. By his second, he is probably speaking in one- and two-word sentences ("No! Mine!" is popular, as are things like, "Mo' milk!" "Papaw here!" and "See kitty?") and might have... oh, I don't have anything in front of me, but off the top of my head, a couple hundred words. And he probably understands more than he can pronounce -- there are several sounds in the English language, especially the way Americans say our R's, that kids may not master for years. The rhotic R is notoriously difficult and it's pretty common to see five-year-olds still having trouble with it. There's variations on this, if the kid is exposed to sign language, or is raised in a multilingual environment, but that's the basics of it.
2)This also has a pretty big variation, but we'll say around 12 months as an average. My little brother was taking steps at 8 months, and I have a cousin who got meningitis at around 15 months and had to re-learn to walk entirely. And they're wobbly for awhile, so there's a little bit of a difference between "unassisted steps" and "running across the room faster than Mom". But you'd probably be safe to say that your baby can run around on her own by 14-15 months.
3)Breastfeeding may well continue as a supplement through the first year and beyond (and, in fact, probably should for the majority of the first year.) Most pediatricians recommend you wait until 4 months before starting with baby cereals (which are basically flakes that can be mixed with juice, water or milk to make a sort of gruel) and 6 months for "solid foods", which in this case means pureed veggies and fruits at first, then meats later. As the baby gets the hang of swallowing while spoon-fed, you can introduce thicker textures, and towards the end of the first year they can start with finger foods as long as they're not a choking hazard. Teeth aren't really even a consideration here as some kids may cut their first tooth at 3 or 4 months (or earlier!) and I have a 15-month-old in my class who only has one tooth (which didn't erupt until well after her first birthday).
4)The Babycenter milestones will be especially invaluable to you here. A good rule of thumb is that babies are expected to triple their birth weight in their first year, possibly drop a little weight as they start toddling and "stretch out" so to speak, and go from there. Oh! A couple of weeks ago we weighed and measured everybody (in my ones class, I mean) for a class project. I can send you those stats if it'd help. You can probably also find growth charts pretty easily on the Internet, and those will give you a good idea of how the child is expected to grow based on gender, age and build.
Wow, so that was my idea of brief? Heh, sorry, I love child development. :) I'm mostly working with the under-2 crowd, but my school does go up to kindergarten with an after-school program up to 12, so feel free to PM me with questions. I'm not a mom, but I do actually know something about this subject. :D
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Oct 27, 2008 - 08 08
All children are different. ;-) Actually, girls tend to do things before boys. My son didn't talk until he was two. (And then he was saying full sentences.) He didn't walk until almost 14 months old. (But then took off running the same day, no wobbly for him!) He wasn't interested in baby cereals or mushed veggies - he really started eating at 8 months old when he figured out how to get a Cheerios into his mouth. I would use the Babycenter link for the sizes - my boy is a stringbean, very tall and thin for his age. His "girlfriend" is a good three inches shorter than him (they're three.)