Toddler not got hang of puzzles - do they all catch up in the end?

[totallynaive]

My 15mo hasn't the foggiest how to get a shape in the correct hole, not even when the manufacturers have obligingly colour-coded the holes and put a little picture clue on each. We're talking choice of 5.

He doesn't seem interested in systematising things according to category either. We don't push him in any way, but I leave simple wooden puzzles by his bed (shape sorters, ark, dress-up bears, wooden blocks that make a picture). He loves playing with them every morning, but for him this means disassembling them and posting all the pieces under the bed one by one, or trying to work out what they're about and eventually dashing the pieces against one another in frustration.

I think he's just been focusing on other things, like running, climbing etc. and he's got good fine motor skills and is very emotionally sensitive and aware. (He's a high needs baby). His favourite toys tend to have wheels or announce, "Ground control to Spaceship One", "Hello Puppy", etc.

Will it all come together, people?

It'll come. DS was an earlyish walker (around 10-11m) and was running by the time he was 1 but he was quite slow with shape-sorting (over 18m, definitely) and has only just, at 4.6, really got the idea of jigsaws.

Mostly they all catch up at some point - my current "fret" is that he still doesn't recognise all his numbers! He can count up to 20 reliably, but doesn't know what the numbers 6,7, 9, 10 and above look like. Same with letters. But it will come, I'm not pushing it, just leaving stuff around for him to play with as and when.

15m old is very young!
Worry if he gets to 3yo & still can't understand.

My 21mo won't do a shape sorter or 2pc jigsaw for love nor money.

If I put his shape sorter in front of him with the shapes laid out (his has 5) he picks up the cylinder and posts that (the easiest one) and then turns the shape sorter over and put the rest in the back.

If I lay out his 2pc animal jigsaws mixed up he picks up all the pairs but puts them in little piles rather than trying to fit them together. No matter how many times I make the picture he is not interested.

I'm not worried. I think it's just him- not a details man workshy. Actually he's pretty good at persevering at other things like working out how to stack up enough things so he can climb onto my kitchen work surfaces just don't think those activities float his boat at the moment.

I'd let your DS follow his interests. They know what they need to work on at that age so as long as you're giving him a range of opportunities he'll find the 'right' thing to practise.

MY DD couldn't do puzzles and shape sorting until 20 months and wasn't good at them until 22/23 months.

Yes I expect so. Can't remember months exactly but DS always used a trial & error method with shapesorters for long enough for me to get bothered by it. Except for the circle; he could do that from early age.

Those 2-piece baby puzzles for 18 month+? Nothing doing at 18 months, but around 26 months he 'got' jigsaws and now at 28 months is able to complete 35-45 piece jigsaws with relatively little prompting. They aren't just ones he knows either (thought for a while it might be a memory thing; he remembers well).

Just wanted to mention - in a surprising turn of events, DS has suddenly, today, produced a written 7, 1 and 8. Completely out of the blue. i am astounded and very very pleased! Especially since last week he couldn't tell me which one was no. 7!

They never cease to surprise, I find. :)

Whew! Guess things come in leaps and bounds with toddlers. Thankyou all for getting back soon enough for me to stop worrying and carry on doing his jigsaws for him for a while as that's all I'm capable of on the amount of sleep I'm getting. And congrats to Thumbwitch's DS!

"He doesn't seem interested in systematising things according to category"

He's a baby, it really doesn't matter. Just let him do fun things.

DD1 was amazing with puzzles, she loved them from a young age and would spend hours and hours with them. She's 5 now and still loves them.

DD2 never did really get the wooden peg puzzles, or the shape sorters. Still isn't that keen on puzzles now at age 3. But she loves small world stuff, will spend ages with playmobil and making up stories for all the characters, and goes into her own world with her toys for ages, which DD1 never did.