Being toddlers, what do your babies do by themselves?
 At the age of 13 months old, they can take their clothes off; begin with simple things such as elastic shorts and stocks. Then, they themselves can take off their coats, dresses and more complex clothes.
Looking after themselves is an important part of individual and social developments of children.
12 - 18 months old
Awareness of self-reliance of your babies appears when they are 1 year old. Ability to be aware of them begin to develop (about 15 months old, your baby can realize his shadow in mirror and does not try to touch the mirror any more because he realizes the shadow in the mirror is his). This makes them want to discover everything by themselves. Not for a long time, your children like other toddlers experience a period of saying "no" to everything. You say, "let me button your shirt", children do not agree and push you back, try to do themselves.
Being 13 months old, your children can take off their clothes. While you fret about putting on stocks for your children so many times, according to them, taking off stocks is a great success and they are very proud of that.
Another skill that children begin to learn is using spoons. Some of them know how to use spoons when they are 13 months old and most of them are skilled in doing this when they are 18 months old. But being able to hold spoons does not mean that they can put food into their mouths tidily. Your children can't certainly use spoons as skilled as adults until they are 4 years old. Thus, prepare to tidy up messes that children make in this period.
19 - 24 months old
Being about 20 months old, most of children know how to take off their clothes. This is an important success of them, and they like doing this repeatedly in order to let you see. This is also a period when it takes everybody in your family much of trouble to run after children while they are naked. Knowing how to take off their clothes, children also begin to know how to put on clothes. But children need some more time to be able to put on pullovers because it requires a quickness that they does not have yet. In this period, children start to care about personal hygiene. The signs that show children know about this are breathing hard and informing adults that they want to go to toilet before too late. If your children are learning to use bedpans, you should teach them to wash and dry hands. Teach them step-by-step and remind them to do regularly.
25 - 30 months old
When children know how to take off and put on clothes, they also know how to take off shoes. This seems to be simple but in fact it is not. Children need to be very clever to take off shoes one by one, if they have to do this as they are standing, they have to keep balance on one leg. Let children change their clothes several times everyday, this is very good. Nevertheless, children often make their clothes dirty while they play or eat. Conversely, if your children don't want to change their clothes themselves, you shouldn't force them.
This period is also the time when you should reduce looking after your children. Your children begin to perform some basic hygienic principles. They may not remember to bring handkerchiefs to wipe their noses, but you should teach them to bow their heads, hide their noses when they sneeze. This is a basic hygienic principle that kindergartens often teach children so as to avoid spreading normal diseases.
This is the time when your children want to do everything on their own; they persist to brush their teeth by themselves. Let them try, but you have to be by their sides to help them. Your children need more time to be able to brush their teeth (when they are 6 or 7 years old).
31 - 36 months old
When your children are nearly 3 years old, they want to do more things by themselves. They take bowls and put rice into them and make milk. You should give them opportunities to do that. For example, you ask them to bring bowls for you to take rice. Then, ask them to pour milk from a pot into a cup. You should encourage the self-reliance of your children by putting a few of raisins and biscuits on a plastic dish within the reach of children. Children may drop some on the floor; you shouldn't pay attention to it but welcome their attempts.
At this age, your children want to put on shoes and button their shirts by themselves... This will make your activities' time in the morning last for 10 more minutes. However, you will have enough time if you get up earlier than everyday. Your children will be very eager to be your "domestic help" and they can do simple things such as bring combs and hats to you every morning or arrange bowls, chopsticks and spoons for dinner. Take advantage of this time to teach children to put toys away after playing. Although children can not tidy up their rooms, you can suggest them putting toys back into boxes or helping you to place books on shelves, they will be very pleased to do with you.
When will you have to be worried?
Speed of developing skills of children is very different; some children develop more quickly than other peers. But if children seem not to care about doing anything by themselves when they are 2 years old or not be able to meet their own basic needs, even eat on their own, you should ask doctors. But feel secure, maybe your children just experience important periods more slowly than other peers.
Some children are very aware of the way they dress. But most of parents often lose their temper and not have free time to think about clothes of their children as well as pay much attention to colors that many children like. If your children persist to choose a set of clothes for themselves, you should give them chances to choose. You give them two sets of clothes for them to choose one. Some parents often save time in the mornings by letting their children prepare their clothes the previous night. A feeling of pride your children have when they can choose clothes for their own also make you feel happy and forget other difficulties.
Ability to look after themselves of children improves very fast in the first year when they are going to go to school. They can do simple things by themselves such as: put on clothes, wash their hands, have meals and bathe (not necessary to be clean).
he bigger your children grow, the more self-reliant they try to be. Before you realize this, they can tie their shoestrings and have a shower by themselves. And at this time, children knowing to wash clothes and cook are just a time problem. By that time, though you wish to look after your children like they were babies just a moment, they will disagree. But in fact, this is the performance of self-reliance of your children and it is also a highly valuable gift for what you did for your children.
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