what sort of imaginative play would you expect at 18 months?

[knickertwister]

Just curious. DS plays with his wooden food, offers me imaginary food off a plate and cooks imaginary things in a saucepan. He talks to his teddies (babbles) and will copy brushing teeth or combing their hair - but not necessarily initiate.

His language is coming along fine but it's not like he's got loads of words.

I suppose I just can't imagine what imaginative play I should expect?

Which in itself makes me feel bad as I'm a creative person by profession!

Sorry, he'll initiate cooking not teddy grooming!

Sounds perfectly normal to me

Mine started with imaginary friends at about 20 months, but all of mine have huge imaginations and are often litually off with the fairies, it has it's pros and cons tbh. The teachers love their imagination, but holding the door open for 3 imaginary friends and then not sitting down for fear of squashing them is somewhat tedious! Not to mention the comments from friends with children who don't get imaginary play and just think your child is wierd.

Sounds about what DS was doing - and he's a straight down the line average child so far.

Around then DS started putting his teddy to bed (not himself.. oh no.. why on earth would he want to do that), and feeding me endless cups of bathwater (which I tried not to drink).

He could also be found getting his helicopter kiss his toy car - confused little chap.

Duracel - that's fantastic, but yes pros and cons.

Thanks all - not worried it wasn't normal, just curious about what it really means.

He seems so little to be doing a lot of imaginative play

DD is 18mo and has just recently began this sort of play too, now she has to change the dolls nappy, give dinner to the teddy and that sort of thing like you say.

She can say lots of words - but we still haven't got any sentences.

As she's my first I am finding it utterly amazing how every day they seem to be learning something new at the moment and yes curious too

Happy - does she initiate it, or is it after you and her playing? My DS doesn't really do huge amount of initiating of this sort of play...more if we say let's feed teddy, clean his teeth etc

Dd2 particularly had problems at nursery which really only began to resolve part way through reception. She would be playing with the fairies while all the other children were playing drs and nurses. She though they were boring, they thought she was wierd. Finally in reception she developed the social skills to communicate the abstract concepts and was able to get the whole class believing that the books were dancing whenever the teachers weren't looking should really offer therapy to anyone who teaches her . Having said that I know some very very clever boys who never engaged in imaginary play, so it's not necessarily the same thing.

Thanks Duracel. That's really interesting. I think DS is clever, but time will tell how imaginative. I'd like him to be - both DH and I are artists - but he'll be what he'll be. There's also that stupid voice that says imaginative play is one of the things to keep an eye on, that it's telling of how children are developing.

Ds is 2.9, is it really bad to barely remember what he was doing then? In my defence, I do have an 8 month old too.

I seem to remember him wanting to o put nappies on his teddies adn trying to put them to bed. He also used to tell me there were tigers down the drain.

A lot of my friends with girls tend to have their girls wanting to play imaginatively with them - 'you be the bay', that kind of thing. Lots of role play with defined roles. I spent the weekend on a 'boat' with ds, 'rescuing the man' from the shark, which we then had to kill with a big hammer.

I have photos of DS at that age playing tea parties with his teddies, putting teddies to bed etc. DS is now VERY imaginative (now six).