This is a happy time for both parents and children. Children at age 12-18 months, can walk without support. And their behavior towards play is going to change completely. Read carefully the following paragraph.
Development of 12-18 month child
They are still unsteady on their feet, and their walking resembles toddling more than mature heel-to-toe walking. Now they want to explore everything; however, their curiosity far outweighs their judgment for predicting outcomes or foreseeing dangers. They are trying out a variety of basic gross and fine motor skills, and are gaining confidence as climbers. They can sing to themselves and will move their bodies to music. Being more mobile, they can self-select toys that were once outside their reach.
They find basic grasping easier, and can manipulate toys that require simple twisting, turning, sliding, and cranking. Through trial and error, they continue to explore cause-and-effect relationships like dumping and filling activities and stacking and knocking over objects. Children at this age display a preference for toys that have greater manipulability and sound potential. They enjoy a variety of actions with objects, such as pressing, pushing, pulling, rolling, pounding, beating, shaking, clanging, fitting (for example, inserting a round peg into a round hole), marking, scribbling, carrying, and poking their fingers into objects. They delight in the many effects their actions cause, and enjoy toys that take advantage of this.
Children of this age can recognize the names of familiar people, objects, pictures, and body parts. Long-term memory and the development of simple vocabulary using one-word utterances now provide the foundation for make-believe or pretend play. However, these children do not make clear symbolic connections until about 18 months of age. These children often imitate common actions they see—such as talking on the phone, “drinking” from a bottle or cup, stirring a spoon inside a bowl, hugging a stuffed animal, or putting on a hat—but only in brief, sporadic episodes.
Types of toys for 12-18 month old child
By 1 year, on average, children are able to show appreciation of sociocultural uses of objects and attend to cause-and-effect relations, which emerges between 13 and 20 months. For example, the child may start to pretend to eat something from a plate. Between 13 and 20 months, they develop greatly in their ability to engage in symbolic play. They can defer imitating something for up to a week, and can also do so across a change in context (for example, from daycare to home). Simple toys that encourage pretend play, such as dress-up materials, dolls, stuffed animals, and small vehicle toys, are appropriate.
