Funny Questions to Ask a Toddler
Twenty short questions for the grown-up who does not live with this toddler: a grandparent on a video call, an aunt in the back of the car, a sitter for one evening. Nothing here needs you to know their routine, their friends or what happened at nursery, so the first laugh arrives inside thirty seconds. If the child is your own and you want the make-believe kind, the funny questions for your toddler go further into dragons and giants.
The questions
Open any question for the note
What's the funniest sound you can make?
Why ask it
No words needed, so a shy toddler joins in immediately. Make a worse one back and you will get three more without asking.
Can you show me your angriest face? Now your sleepiest?
Why ask it
Faces on demand are easier than answers, and switching between two is a game a toddler can win. It also shows you how they read emotions on other people.
What sound does a fish make?
Why ask it
Animal noises are a toddler's strongest subject, so slip a hard one in among the easy ones. Whatever they invent for the fish is the bit worth writing down.
Is this my nose?
Why ask it
Point at your elbow. Toddlers love catching an adult being wrong, and correcting you takes one syllable, which makes it the easiest laugh here.
Who's taller, you or the dog?
Why ask it
A forced choice gets an answer where an open question gets silence, and toddlers take the question of their own size extremely seriously.
What's in your pocket?
Why ask it
Toddler pockets contain rocks, crumbs and one small stolen object. It works on a video call too, because they will go and fetch things to show you.
What's the yuckiest food in the whole world?
Why ask it
Disgust is the strongest opinion a toddler can express clearly, and yuck is a word they can perform. Expect whatever was on their plate most recently.
Should I wear this hat on my head or on my foot?
Why ask it
Physical absurdity is the humor that lands hardest before three. If they pick the foot, do it, and you have bought another five minutes of laughing.
Are you a baby or a big kid?
Why ask it
Toddlers are fiercely invested in being big, so the indignant answer is reliable. It also shows you where they think they sit next to a sibling.
What noise does Grandma make when she sees you?
Why ask it
It asks for an impression rather than a description, and toddler impressions of relatives are unnervingly accurate. Excellent on a video call with that relative watching.
Who's the silliest person in this family?
Why ask it
The answer is honest in a way an adult's never would be, and being named is a compliment. Ask why and you get one specific piece of evidence.
What should we name this spoon?
Why ask it
Naming rights over a random object gets their favorite words out. Whatever the spoon ends up being called will still be its name next month.
What's the cat thinking about?
Why ask it
It asks them to imagine another mind, which is new work at this age. They project their own wants onto the animal, so you learn what the toddler wants.
What did you have for breakfast? Was it soup?
Why ask it
Remembering earlier today is hard work for a toddler, so a deliberately wrong suggestion gives them something to push against instead of a blank to fill.
Can you jump higher than me?
Why ask it
A challenge rather than a question, which is how you get a wary child moving when you have only just walked in. Lose the first round and you will be asked for a rematch all evening.
Where does the bath water go?
Why ask it
There is no way for them to know, so you get invention rather than recall. Follow the theory instead of correcting it and it usually grows a second chapter.
What would you do with a hundred bananas?
Why ask it
Silly numbers land well before toddlers understand quantity. Asking what they would do, rather than whether they want them, gets an actual plan.
Will you go and find the silliest thing in this room?
Why ask it
A fetch quest works in someone else's house and works on a video call, where a plain question usually does not. Whatever comes back is your conversation for the next five minutes.
What's your favorite joke?
Why ask it
Toddlers have no jokes yet but know jokes exist, so you get the shape with no punchline. It is the funniest thing on this list and worth recording.
Can you tell me a story?
Why ask it
The biggest ask here. The result is usually a plotless string of favorite nouns, so say nothing once you have asked and let it run to the end.
Getting an answer instead of a stare
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
How to ask a toddler anything
- Keep it under about six words. One idea at a time is the limit, and a question with a comma in it will lose them halfway.
- Offer two options rather than an open question. Hat on my head or my foot gives them something to point at. Many toddlers repeat the last option, so flip the order and ask again to see if they meant it.
- Repeat it in exactly the same words. Rephrasing sounds like a brand new question and sends their processing back to the start.
- Wait five or six full seconds. It feels far longer to you than it does to them, and most adults give up one second early.
- Be the one who is wrong. Guess soup for breakfast, point at your elbow, call the dog a chicken. Correcting a grown-up pulls more language out of a toddler than any direct question.
The best places
- Car seats. Nobody can leave, there is nothing else to look at, and side by side beats face to face for pressure.
- The bath, if you do not mind wet questions. It is where the invented theories arrive.
- Dinner tables, once the eating part is over. Ask before and you will get nothing but food negotiation.
- Video calls, with one adjustment: start with faces and noises, because a toddler will not answer a thoughtful question to a screen.
What does not work yet
- Anything starting with if you could. Hypothetical reasoning arrives closer to three or four, and before then you get whatever object is nearest.
- Why questions. Toddlers ask why constantly and cannot answer it. Use what, where and who instead.
- Asking in front of an expectant audience. The answer you got yesterday vanishes the moment three relatives lean in.
- Correcting the funny answer. If the bath water goes to the moon, ask what the moon does with it. Fact checking ends the conversation.
- Stacking a second question on the first. Your follow-up erases the original question completely.
Keeping the answers
- Write them down word for word, mispronunciations included. Tidying the grammar deletes the part you will miss.
- Date every quote. The gap between two and three is enormous, and you will not remember which month produced which answer.
- Ask the same five questions on the first of every month. The changing answers become a language record no milestone chart will give you.
- Use a voice memo rather than video for the story question. They perform less when no camera is pointed at them.