Toddler-hood is an important phase in the
development of your baby. It is at this time that most children will
perfect their walking and start speaking and responding in an
interactive manner. It is also a time when the rapid rate of growth
they have been experiencing so far will gradually decrease.
Your toddler's growth has two aspects to
it-physical and mental. Physical growth refers to the increase in
height and weight and other physical attributes of your toddler. Mental
growth refers to the increase in your toddler's mental development
including the capacity to think, imagine, analyze, judge wrong and
right etc.
You can understand your toddler's growth with the
help of 'growth charts.' Pediatricians often use growth charts to
monitor your toddlers' growth. The growth chart represents a plotting
of your toddler's height and weight against the age to form a growth
curve.
Your pediatrician would be able to give you proper
instructions on how to plot and read your toddler's growth chart to
find out if your child is growing normally or not. Depending on how
much data you like to record, and some dads love to record it all, you
can download charts from the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) at
www.cdc.gov/nchs/about/major/nhanes/growthcharts/charts.htm.
However, most parents can just ask to see the
growth chart at your regular appointments with your pediatrician. Make
sure to ask where your baby is versus other babies on three key
statistics: weight, height, and head size. Ask your doctor if any of
these numbers appear low for the baby's age.
It is important to note that toddlers aged between
six and eighteen months can have widely fluctuating growth curves
because the rate of growth is higher in this period. So the doctor will
especially be looking for changes in the percentile ratings to see if
the relative size of your baby is stable. Note that later, growth
curves for older toddlers are normally more stable because they tend to
grow more slowly.
As children learn to speak, pauses and repetitions
of syllables or words are normal. Parents typically notice episodes of
stuttering interspersed with periods of normal speech. Read more about stuttering
in toddlers
Article Source: http://
www.articlesbase.com/parenting-articles/understand-your-
toddlers-growth-537956.html About the Author
Paul Banas is a founder of GreatDad.com. He writes
articles on pregnancy care, unusual
baby names, toilet
training, parenting tips and many more topics related to dads. | 