His doctor said 20 words. I got anxious (so I started counting EVERYTHING)

Before Mylo was born, I thought I had a plan for raising a bilingual child. Then I changed my mind. I'm a French-speaking mama raising my son, Mylo, with both French and English. We don't follow a strict one-parent-one-language rule. Instead, both languages are part of our everyday life. In this video, I’m sharing why I changed my mind before he was born, what bilingualism looks like in our family, and what research has helped me understand along the way. At Mylo’s 18-month checkup, I found myself counting words, making lists, and wondering whether we were doing things right. That experience reminded me that language development is about so much more than a number. I'm not a language development expert, and this isn't a guide to raising a bilingual child. It's a personal reflection on our experience so far, the research I've explored, and what I've learned about letting both languages belong. I'm curious: Are you raising a bilingual child? Do you follow a particular language approach, or do you let both languages flow naturally in your family? I'd love to hear about your experience in the comments. Thank you for being here and sharing these little moments with us! #Parenting #ToddlerParenting #Bilingualism #MixingLanguages #BrainDevelopment #Bilingual 🎞️ For our family memories: Captured on film when Mylo was 0-18 months old. _________________________ 🎬 Chapters 0:00 I had a plan 1:09 Why I changed my mind about raising a bilingual child 3:15What bilingualism looks like in our everyday life 11:53 What I've learned from the research 17:16 We're only at the beginning of the language development journey _________________________ 📖 Research links 📚 1. Language grows through interaction Canadian Paediatric Society: Read, Speak, Sing: Promoting Early Literacy in the Health Care Setting https://cps.ca/en/documents/position/... 📚 2. Babies recognize patterns in language before they're born Byers-Heinlein, K., Burns, T. C., & Werker, J. F. (2010). The roots of bilingualism in newborns. Psychological Science, 21(3), 343–348. https://www.researchgate.net/publicat... 📚 3. Bilingualism has many paths De Houwer, A. (2007). Parental language input patterns and children's bilingual use. Applied Psycholinguistics, 28(3), 411–424. https://www.researchgate.net/publicat... 📚 4. Mixing languages shapes bilingualism Paquette, A., & Byers-Heinlein, K. (2025). Parental Language Mixing in Montreal: Rates, Predictors, and Relation to Infants' Vocabulary Size. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles... _________________________ 🔗 Links 🧸 Lovevery Play Kits & Play Gym https://lovevery.com/ These are the toys and resources we use in our own family. Our experience is personal, and every child's language journey is different. _________________________ 🎵 Music Music: The Flow of Time by Alex-Productions   / alexproductionsmusic   License: Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY 3.0 Free Download / Stream: https://links.al/z1N Music promoted by Audio Library: https://links.al/youtube