Motor Skill Development in Toddlers: What's Normal at 12, 18, 24 Months

Between the first birthday and the second, toddlers undergo a dramatic physical transformation — from a wobbly new walker to a small person running, climbing, throwing, and attempting to dress themselves. Understanding the motor milestones along this journey helps parents support development actively and recognise when something warrants professional input.

Gross Motor Development: The Big Picture

Gross motor skills involve the large muscle groups — legs, trunk, arms — used for whole-body movements. In the toddler period, gross motor development is primarily about refining and extending upright movement.

Source: CDC Developmental Milestones (2022); AAP developmental screening standards

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Fine Motor Development: Hands and Fingers

Fine motor skills involve the small muscles of the hand and fingers, working in coordination with vision. They develop progressively from whole-hand grasping to precise fingertip manipulation and begin to underpin self-care, tool use, and eventually writing.

Source: CDC Developmental Milestones; Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development

How to Support Motor Development in Toddlers

For Gross Motor (12–24 Months)

Provide lots of unstructured movement time. Free exploration — climbing, jumping, running, rolling — is the most effective motor development activity. Structured gymnastics classes, baby yoga, and paid activity sessions are less important than unencumbered free play in a safe space.

Offer gentle physical challenges. Low steps to climb, soft balls to kick, pillows to navigate around, a small slide — the brain builds motor programs through repeated problem-solving with physical challenges at the appropriate difficulty level.

Minimise container time. Buggies, bouncers, and high chairs serve important functions but limit the active movement time that builds motor competence. When safe, let toddlers walk rather than carrying or pushing them.

Outdoor walking on uneven surfaces. Grass, gentle slopes, and slightly uneven terrain are much better balance and proprioception training than smooth flat indoor floors.

For Fine Motor (12–24 Months)

Stacking and building: Stacking blocks is one of the most effective fine motor activities available — it challenges precise release, visual-motor coordination, and problem-solving simultaneously. Start with large soft blocks, progress to wooden unit blocks.

Play-dough and clay: Squeezing, rolling, and pressing develop the intrinsic hand muscles that are required for later precision grip.

Self-feeding: Allowing toddlers to feed themselves with fingers and then a spoon, despite the mess, is accelerated fine motor training. Every spoonful they manage independently builds the hand-to-mouth coordination that underlies later self-care.

Drawing and painting: Provide fat crayons and large paper from 12 months. Scribbling develops into intentional mark-making and eventually writing — but all of it starts with unguided mark-making on a large surface.

Simple posting toys and puzzles: Fitting shapes into holes develops visual-spatial reasoning alongside hand-eye coordination.

Red Flags for Gross Motor Delay

Discuss with your paediatrician at next visit:

• Not walking independently by 18 months
• Not running (even stiffly) by 20 months
• Falling significantly more than peers on flat surfaces at 24 months
• Can only walk on tiptoes (no flat-foot walking) after 24 months

Seek assessment sooner if:

• Strong hand preference before 18 months (suggests weakness in the preferred-inactive hand)
• Motor regression — losing walking or standing skills at any age
• Very low muscle tone (floppy, difficulty holding head up, resistance to being upright)
• Asymmetric movement (dragging one leg, not weight-bearing on one side)

Red Flags for Fine Motor Delay

Discuss with paediatrician:

• No pincer grasp (still using whole-hand palmar grip exclusively) by 15 months
• Not stacking any blocks by 18 months
• Cannot hold a crayon or marker by 18 months
• Not self-feeding at all by 18 months (not just messily)

Seek occupational therapy referral if:

• At 24 months, no intentional mark-making with drawing tools
• Strong preference for one hand with apparent weakness in the other before 18 months
• Unable to stack 3+ blocks by 24 months

The Takeaway

Motor development in the toddler years is dynamic and individual. The tables above represent CDC norms — most children exceed many of these milestones before the listed age; some children approach the lower bounds and develop typically. What matters most is a consistent developmental trajectory — new skills building on previous ones — rather than hitting exact age-pegged numbers. For the full story from newborn reflexes through to walking, when do babies start walking covers the progression from first standing to confident steps.

Early referral to physiotherapy or occupational therapy for genuine delays is not a stigmatising action. It is the most effective thing a parent can do when a milestone gap is real. Toddler play-based therapy during the 1–3 year window — when neuroplasticity is highest — consistently produces the best long-term outcomes for children with motor differences.