23 Month Old Milestones: What to Expect

You watched your toddler climb onto the kitchen counter this morning, stack blocks with impressive precision, and then completely melt down because you handed them the wrong color cup. At 23 months, your child can do things that seem impossibly advanced one moment and impossibly difficult the next —leaving you to wonder what’s “normal”. 

Here's what makes 23 months old milestones so confusing: your toddler sits right between the big developmental checkpoints, and comparison culture makes every playdate feel like a performance review. One parent's child is speaking in sentences while yours communicates mostly through pointing and single words. Another child still isn't walking independently while yours scales furniture like a tiny parkour athlete.

This article will walk you through what developmental milestones actually mean at this age, what many 23-month-olds are doing across language, movement, play, and thinking, and — most importantly — how to tell the difference between normal variation and patterns worth discussing with your pediatrician. We'll also talk about why behavior suddenly feels harder right now, what's going on with sleep, and how to support your child's development without losing your mind in the process.

How to read 23 months old milestones without spiraling

Developmental milestones are skills that many children demonstrate around a certain age — not a pass/fail checklist that determines your child's future or your parenting grade. At 23 months, your toddler is approaching the 2-year mark, which means most clinical guidance anchors to the CDC's 2-year milestone page. The CDC updated its milestone framework in 2022 based on research by Zubler et al.[1] published in Pediatrics, and this shift matters more than you might think: the new milestones emphasize what at least 75% of children do by a given age, rather than the earlier, more aspirational benchmarks that made many older milestone charts feel anxiety-producing rather than helpful.

Here's the philosophy we lean into at The Peaceful Sleeper: use averages as a guide, but tune into the whole child — their cues, their patterns, their unique rhythm — rather than comparing them to the loudest parent on the internet or the most advanced kid at daycare. Uneven development is completely normal at this age. Your toddler can be advanced in climbing and puzzles while remaining more average in speech or emotional regulation, and that's okay.

A few quick definitions that'll make the rest of this article easier to follow:

• Receptive language — what your child understands

• Expressive language — what they say out loud

• Joint attention — sharing focus on an object or event with another person

• Pretend play — using toys or actions symbolically, like feeding a stuffed animal or pretending a block is a phone

• Self-regulation — recovering from frustration with help or on their own

One more thing before we dive in: behavior at 23 months is heavily shaped by context; especially sleep, discomfort, and transitions. Many of the behavior spikes parents report at this age aren't pure defiance or developmental regression. Overtiredness, molars coming in, schedule mismatches, and communication frustration all play a huge role in how your toddler shows up during the day. What looks like a behavior problem is often a sleep, comfort, or communication problem in disguise.

What many 23-month-olds are doing: language, play, thinking, and movement

Social-emotional and play development at 23 months often looks like this: your toddler pretends to feed a stuffed animal, stirs an empty pot on their play kitchen, or holds a block up to their ear like a phone. Pretend play is one of the most exciting milestones to watch because it shows your child is beginning to think symbolically. Many toddlers this age also start to play near other children rather than completely ignoring them. This is called parallel play, and it's totally developmentally appropriate.

The CDC's 2-year social milestones include noticing when others are hurt or upset and looking at a caregiver's face to see how to react in new situations (social referencing). Your child might pause and look at you when a dog barks, checking your expression before deciding how they feel. This doesn't mean your 23-month-old is consistently empathic or flexible — it just means the building blocks are showing up.

Language and communication at this age can look wildly different from child to child, and that variation is often the source of the most parental anxiety. What "on track" looks like in real life: pointing to pictures in books when you ask "where's the dog?", naming body parts, using gestures like waving or blowing kisses, following simple directions like "get your shoes," and often beginning to combine two words like "more milk" or "daddy go." Some toddlers are stringing together short phrases by now, while others are still working on single words. 

Here's the research anchor that should ease some of the word-count panic: the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories, developed by Fenson et al.[2], show that expressive vocabulary at 24 months has a very wide normal range, with differences of hundreds of words still falling within normative bands. Word-count panic is less useful than looking at the whole communication profile — how your child uses gestures, how much they understand, whether they try to communicate even when words aren't coming easily.

Cognitive and fine motor development shows up in the small, practical moments you see all day: your toddler uses one hand to hold a cup steady while the other hand tries to twist the lid off. They experiment with light switches and buttons, stack blocks with more intention, turn board book pages one at a time, and play with more than one toy at once. Some 23-month-olds show real strengths in puzzles, letter recognition, or shape matching. But here's an important nuance: rote skills and overall development are not the same thing. A child can excel at visual-spatial tasks while still needing support in language, social communication, or self-regulation.

Gross motor and self-help skills at 23 months typically include running (still with a bit of a toddle), kicking a ball, walking up a few stairs with help, and using a spoon to eat — even if half the food ends up on their shirt. But here's the pattern parents describe constantly: their 23-month-old can drag stools across the kitchen, open doors with round knobs, and climb onto counters — all before they have any reliable danger awareness. Advanced motor skills are absolutely something to celebrate, but they also mean your child is physically capable of getting into more trouble than their brain is ready to handle.

What often surprises parents at 23 months: uneven speech, big feelings, and sleep weirdness

The mismatch between what your toddler can understand, what they can physically do, and what they can emotionally manage defines this age more than any single milestone. Your child knows exactly what they want — the blue cup, not the red one; that specific song, not the one you're singing. They can climb onto the couch and open the fridge. But they cannot yet manage the frustration when you don't understand their one unclear word, and they cannot reliably stop themselves from doing something dangerous even when you've said "no" ten times.

Here's the reframe that helps: development comes with protest, and frustration is often part of growth — not evidence that something is going wrong.

Communication mismatch meltdowns are one of the most misunderstood patterns at this age. The child knows exactly which snack, cup, or song they want. They say one unclear word — maybe "nana" or "bah" or "dat" — and the parent guesses wrong. The toddler tries again, gets more frustrated, and then falls apart completely. Ross Greene's perspective on explosive behavior is useful here: these episodes often reflect lagging skills rather than manipulative intent. Your toddler is not trying to control you — they're genuinely stuck between knowing what they need and being unable to communicate it effectively. That reframe helps you respond with more patience, which is exactly what a frustrated 23-month-old needs.

Not all tantrums are created equal. Research by Belden, Thomson, and Luby[3] in the Journal of Pediatrics clarifies what clinicians actually look for when evaluating tantrums in early childhood. What matters more than the presence of tantrums are specific features: duration (tantrums lasting more than 25 minutes regularly), aggression toward others, self-injury, frequency across many different settings, and how well the child recovers afterward. A toddler who melts down hard but calms within 10–15 minutes and reconnects with you looks very different from a child who stays dysregulated for an hour and cannot be soothed.

Sleep often "gets weird again" at 23 months, and it catches parents completely off guard. Parents frequently report that sleep suddenly derails after a stable stretch — bedtime resistance, split nights, 5 a.m. wake-ups, or a new battle between nap length and bedtime. Dr. Jodi Mindell, a leading pediatric sleep researcher,[4] emphasizes that we should avoid overusing the word "regression" because it implies the child has lost a skill, when really the issue is usually a mismatch between their current sleep needs and their schedule. Likely mechanisms at 23 months include the nap running too long or too late, language bursts keeping the brain busy, molars coming in, or climbing out of the crib for the first time.

This ties directly back to our philosophy at The Peaceful Sleeper: overtiredness and shifting sleep needs amplify daytime behavior. A toddler who is undertired at bedtime or overtired from a too-short nap will have less emotional regulation, more communication frustration, and bigger meltdowns over small things. Sleep and behavior are not separate issues at this age — they're deeply connected.

When to seek support and how to help at home

Not every late talker or tantrum-heavy toddler needs urgent concern, but certain patterns do deserve prompt discussion with a pediatrician or Early Intervention. Clinicians near age 2 are looking at a whole communication profile, not just word count.

According to AAP autism guidance by Hyman, Levy, and Myers[5], pediatricians focus on pointing to share interest (not just pointing to request), response to name, imitation of actions and sounds, pretend play, gesture use, and joint attention. A child who has 15 words but points to show you the airplane in the sky and looks back at your face when something new happens has a very different profile than a child who has 15 words but does not respond to their name consistently and does not engage in back-and-forth play.

The AAP recommends standardized autism-specific screening at 18 and 24 months. In the M-CHAT-R/F validation study by Robins et al.[6], which included 16,071 toddlers, children who screened positive on both the initial screen and the follow-up interview had a 47.5% risk of autism spectrum disorder and a 94.6% risk of any developmental delay or concern. This is why pediatricians take the 24-month visit seriously even when a parent says, "I think it's just speech."

Strong motor skills, puzzle abilities, or letter recognition do not cancel out social-communication concerns. A child can have strong visual-spatial skills or excellent memory while still showing delays in social communication, pretend play, or flexible thinking. These are separate developmental streams, and strength in one area does not automatically mean the other areas are on track.

Bilingual families need to think about language development differently. Research by Krista Byers-Heinlein[7] and resources from the MacArthur-Bates multilingual team emphasize that bilingual toddlers can appear behind if adults count only one language. A child who says 10 words in English and 15 words in Spanish has 25 words total — and that total conceptual vocabulary is what matters for development, not just their output in one language.

Here's what you can do at home right now: 

• Narrate your routines out loud so your child hears language in context. 

• Read interactively by asking your child to point to pictures and label objects. 

• Model short phrases instead of long sentences, and pause to give your child time to respond or imitate. 

• Offer simple choices to reduce communication frustration: "Do you want the red cup or the blue cup?" instead of open-ended questions your child can't yet answer.

Track patterns instead of isolated hard days, trust your instincts, and reach out when something feels off. Early Intervention services are available in every state for children under age 3, evaluations are free, and you do not need a doctor's referral to call your local program and request an assessment. Seeking help isn't an overreaction — it's responsive, informed parenting.

Sources

1. Zubler, J. M. et al. (2022). Updating Developmental Milestones: Pediatric Research and CDC Milestone Framework.

2. Fenson, L. et al. (1993). MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories. 

3. Belden, A. C., Thomson, N. R., & Luby, J. L. (2008). Temper Tantrums in Healthy versus Depressed and Disruptive Preschoolers: Defining Tantrum Behaviors Associated with Clinical Problems. 

4. Mindell, J. A. (2023). Pediatric Sleep Research and Sleep Schedule Mismatch in Toddlers. 

5. Hyman, S. L., Levy, S. E., & Myers, S. M. (2020). Identification, Evaluation, and Management of Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder. 

6. Robins, D. L. et al. (2014). Validation of the Modified Checklist for Autism in Toddlers, Revised with Follow-up (M-CHAT-R/F). 

7. Byers-Heinlein, K. (2013). Bilingual Language Development in Toddlers.