My toddler hasn’t had play dates in the pandemic. Is that okay?

Lauren Crosby, a pediatrician at La Peer Pediatrics in Beverly Hills, Calif., agrees that toddlers want human engagement, not essentially peer engagement, to hit anticipated milestones. She suggests speaking to toddlers to advertise language improvement. “Discuss to the kid, even whether it is an toddler, about what’s out on the earth: ‘See the bushes, hear the birds, that’s a bus going by,’ ” she says.