Bilingual childhoods come in seasons. Expect code-mixing, silent periods, and uneven spurts—and use warm routines, shared reading, and real-life reasons to use both languages.

When English wins by default, don’t fight it—warm it up. Use tiny daily touchpoints, joyful stories, and social support to make your target language feel easy, useful, and worth using.

Two-year-olds learn through short, joyful repeats. Choose sturdy board books with clear visuals, rhyme and rhythm, and use quick “name and expand” talk to grow language—then let attention spans be tiny.