When did your child start 'pretend play'?

[Wild Lupine]

The title pretty much says it.

My DD started being able to follow along with pretend play when she was close to two, and initiating it shortly after two. DS a little earlier (but that's probably because he lived with DD who was very into pretend play when he was a baby/young toddler.

[love4bob]

DD1 was probably closer to 2, and DD2 was about 15-18 months. I think having an older sibling helps! DD2 has done most things earlier than her sister did.

[Astraia]

Last week. Serious. All of a sudden she started talking to her doll, telling a stuffed dog to "sit, stay!" and making it sit, pretending to eat her felt food, etc. Never showed a hint of it then all of a sudden...!

[sapphire_chan]

around 15-18 months for anything noticeable, e.g. Carrying doll around, using a block as a telephone. It really took off in the past month thoug with sharing food with a teddy, fedding me imaginary berries, proclaiming herself to be a butterfly or dinosaur and such

[April Dawn]

My 16 month old started some pretending about a month ago. He loves cars, and will grab all sorts of random objects and push them around, saying "ooooooooom" (his version of "vroom") and "car!" That's very basic pretend play, though; he's still too young for really complex, involved pretend play.

[ellemenope]

18-21 months

Coinciding with speaking in sentences. She would initiate games where the bed was a boat and it was surrounded by dolphins as well as sharks. She would go out and kiss the dolphins and punch the sharks in the nose. She would get bit and bring me silks to wrap up her wound. (Meanwhile, I was half asleep on the bed.)

She also claims to see things that are not there. We have had a blue monster that lives in the crack of the bed since she was 18 months old. For some reason snakes follow us around, and if things get dull I can always count on a monkey with a trumpet to come around.

She has pretended her toys were real since before she turned one. Now at 2, she gets quite hung up on the fact that they "are just toys."

[thehighernest]

I want to say around 15 months? But nothing intricate by any means - he's just now starting to speak a few words at 18 months, so it's always been simple things like feeding felt/wooden food to a stuffed animal or using his hand to pretend to take his temperature or talk on the phone.

[Logan's mommy]

I don't really remember when ds1 started, but probably around 2. Ds2 started pretending a lot here within the last few months. He pretends things are phones, and his toys play together, he fights bad guys with ds1. Ds2 has done most everything earlier than ds1 did, other than talking. He still doesn't really do that.

[shnitzel]

What is considered pretend play?

DD (15 months) pretends to eat her fake food and feeds us and her stuffed animals but we modeled that for her so I am not sure if she would have started on her own. She also makes me nurse her teddy bears and talks on fake phones all the time She doesn't talk much so I can't really tell what is going on in her mind.

[luvmybaby333]

I don't know. I guess it depends on what your definition of pretend play is. My daughter (the younger one) started pretending to be a kitty at around 1½-years-old. It branched out from there. Now she is a little over 2 and she pretend plays quite a bit. She has her dolls verbally interact with each-other. She role-plays as a mommy and such. She still pretends to be a cat. She sometimes even pretends to play dead (Complete with lolling tongue... we're not sure where she even picked up on that one. ) I'm not sure how much of it is due to her unique personality, or how much of it is due to having an older sister. I don't remember my older daughter getting so in depth with the pretend play at such a young age. But Aurora does a lot of things earlier than her sister did. It could be in her nature, or it could be from her environment. I guess I'll never know.

I will say that perhaps her early pretend play was linked to early verbalization? Aurora understands and can express many concepts beyond what people expect from a child her age. I was the same way... though my memory is fuzzy on when exactly I started clearly expressing all the ideas floating around in my head. I remember thoughts from my toddler years more than I do specific interactions.

[ShyDaisi]

Between 2 and 3.

[rightkindofme]

Depends on how you define pretend play I suppose. Some stuff around 15ish months, but she started doing elaborate scenarios a bit before turning two.

[Dar]

I have a video of my daughter at 11 months putting her new stuffed Barney to bed on the couch and covering him up (it was Christmas day, so I'm sure of her age).

I don't really remember the age for other stuff but she was a mad crazy pretender for years...

[TalkinBoutMyGirl]

Sometime around 18 months, she doesn't have older siblings to play with but we interact with her a lot. It's super cute

[MamaPhD]

20 mo.

[colsxjack]

My DD pretended to use the phone and pretend eat and feed us with her play food and play kitchen since about 12-13months.
At about 13-14 months she put a small paper bag on her head and pretended it was a hat. She now (14.5months) pretends lots of things are hats.
As far as we know, she hasn't come up with story lines or elaborate pretend scenarios.

[PiePie]

symbolic play (block as telephone, e.g.) at 9 mos.

true imaginary narratives at 18 mos. i don't think she had the expressive language capability before 17 mos.

[physmom]

At 9 months she started playing with her dolls (feeding them, putting them to sleep, etc. ). She'd also pretend to talk on the phone at that point too. She's always been a very imaginative kid and at 20 months can now play pretty extensively with her Little People Dollhouse.

[JessieBird]

Pretending a block is the phone - around 12 mos, though it's possible that he thought the block was the phone so I'm not sure if that counts.

Pretending to feed his animals and make them kiss each other - 20-21 mos. It never crossed my mind to model pretend play (I'm too practical, choosing to "play" at to stirring muffin batter or folding laundry instead) so this came entirely from him and it really surprised me. So adorable!

Pretending to be an animal (or other) - hasn't done that yet, doesn't understand costumes at all and we've been looking at a lot of them in stores lately.

He's currently 22 mos. It is too cute to have to take breaks on our walks because his plastic goat his hungry and needs to sample the flowers. Love it!

[CrunchyChristianMama]

She did some very basic pretend play around 16-18 months I would guess, but really got into it around 20-22 months. Now at 24 months she pretends her babies are real and cries for them so that she can go pick them up and calm them down, etc. She often goes off and does her own thing and I can't quite tell what she's up to, but seems to have some kind of elaborate ideas of what she's doing.