98 Week Old Baby: Your Baby's Development and Your Recovery This Week

Your toddler is pairing up words into tiny sentences this week, and it's a delight.

At around 24 months, many toddlers jump with both feet, walk up stairs one step at a time holding a rail, and start speaking in two-word phrases ("more milk", "mama come", "no want"). The upper second molars can appear before the second birthday, and they can cause a few days of discomfort.

• Around 50+ words
• 2-word phrases
• Names most familiar objects
• Points to named body parts
• Responds to simple requests

If your toddler has under 50 words or isn't combining any words by 2, it's worth a chat with the pediatrician. Hearing check is the usual first step.

• Potty readiness builds over weeks. If any of the signs (dry stretches, telling you, hiding to poop) aren't there yet, don't push. A toddler trained under pressure often regresses later.

• Cold (not frozen) silicone teether
• Soft, cool foods: curd, cucumber sticks, smooth mashed fruit
• Paracetamol if your pediatrician has okayed it for their weight Fever above 38.5 °C, refusal to drink, or being very limp and hard to wake is not teething alone, call the pediatrician.

"Mama come" may be two words, but it is also a whole love letter. Week by week, baby development turns babble into sentences, and your answering voice is the reason the words keep coming. Keep the conversation going; it is the best duet you will ever sing.

Around 23.5 months. Sleep transitions around the 2-year mark, naps shorten, bedtimes shift.

Around age 2, common sleep changes

• Daytime nap may shorten or shift later
• Some toddlers transition to one nap (typically afternoon)
• Bedtime resistance may temporarily increase
• Night wakings are usually less but can briefly bump up

Things that often help

• Consistent bedtime and wake-up time
• Cool, dark room
• No screens 30 mins before sleep
• Comfort items (soft toy, a small light)

For your sleep

By 23 months, your accumulated sleep debt is real. Things that help:

• A fixed wake-up time, even on weekends
• No phone in bed
• A cool bedroom
• A 10-minute wind-down ritual

Indian-tradition tip

• A glass of haldi-doodh before bed, a foot massage with warm oil, a few minutes of pranayama lying down, gentle wind-downs that work for both you and toddler.

Eating well

• Three meals + two snacks. Magnesium-rich foods (almonds, jaggery, dark chocolate) earlier in the day support sleep.

Worth flagging

• Loud snoring, gasping, or breathing pauses in your toddler's sleep, flag at the pediatrician. Sleep apnea in toddlers is rare but treatable. For yourself, if you are still snoring loudly or unrefreshed after 8 hours, a sleep study is worth doing. Postpartum hormonal shifts can trigger sleep apnea that wasn't there before.

Indian-tradition sleep tips

A small, soft musical instrument (a wind chime, a gentle kanjira, a recorded lori)

• Indian families have used soft sound to settle babies for generations. Modern white-noise machines do the same thing. Either works.

Protecting your own wind-down, the haldi-doodh, the dim lights, the phone left outside the room, matters as much as the toddler's routine. Sleep is the quietest form of mother self care, and after these long months you have more than earned deep rest. May tonight be a soft one for you both.