baby shakes her head no far more easily than nods yes!

[tryhardasyoucan]

My 19 month old DD can shake her head very easily. And say no. But she finds it less easy - or natural?!- to say yes, and nod. She will if I initiate it. Is this common? I have no concerns about her language and she does make her needs understood very clearly through a mix of words and behaviour.

my dd is 20mths she is talkinf mire and more. mainly single words. does no very well but tends to just smile for yes! she can nod but doesnt very often. she is very definite with her no and a firm shake of her head!

she is my 5th. i would say its normal :)

My 16mo DD shakes her head at me often - she stands there with her arms folded and shakes her head at me (wonder where she has picked that up?!?). She never nods her head

Put it this way. I have one and only one friend whose baby learned Yes before No and it was bizarre.

haha TheSurgeonsMate!!!

Very normal. I think learning to shake their heads is often before a year, but nodding is much harder and can easily be around 2yo or later.

I felt I'd managed a great achievement that mine all learnt to say "yes" before they said "no". It didn't make them any more co-operative though They all shook their heads for "no" though.

Ach, it's just they hear no more often, and want to say no more often. DS3 (19mo) has been shaking his head for no since he was 9mo. Nodding for yes only came last week!

Completely normal! DS (and DD) learned 'no' waaaay before 'yes'. In fact I'm pretty sure it was one of his first words!
As Couthy says they hear it much more, plus it's far more fun for them to get their parents' response when they say 'no'!

Well, physically, it's much easier for babies to shake their heads than to nod them - the head-shaking comes much earlier in the development cycle so that's probably why yours only does the nodding when prompted.

As she's able to do it at all, I'm with DeWe in thinking it doesn't sound problematic.

Actually, I wonder if Greek mothers have the same issue the other way 'round, given that they nod for 'no' and shake for 'yes'? (I think it's the Greeks that do that anyway, but am happy to stand corrected!)

DS was shaking his head from about 8 months, but even now hardly ever nods his head, at 2.8 y.o.

He learnt the word yes (or yes please) about 6 months before he learnt the word no, probably because we tried to use the word no as little as possible.

I had no choice but to use no, repeatedly, with DS3. He likes trying to climb up things, throw himself off things, smash things, crash things, tear things, squash things, stick things in plug sockets (he worked out how to remove plug socket protectors at 13mo), take batteries out of the remote control, unplug the worse for the TV, unplug the DVD player and carry it across the front room, climb over the stairgates, open the stairgates (the clever little toad UNSCREWS the pressure fittings at the top, then just pushes it flat on the floor...).

I have had far more need to use the word 'no' with him than I ever did with the other 3!

DS didn't learn to nod till he was well over 18 months old, but could happily shake his head at about 9 months. I think it's completely normal. He also said the word no before he said yes...

Oh, we used the concept of no all the time, just not the word. We'd say things like, "Plugs are dangerous. You can play with x instead," and remove him offer a distraction. Or we'd say, "You can have a biscuit later," rather than saying no he couldn't have one now. We've always told him to "leave things alone" rather than saying "no" to touching them IYSWIM.

Same story here, 16 mo DD can shake her head and say "nanananana" but the concept of agreeing to do something mummy wants her to do is still strange to her :-)