At 3 months old, AJ starts to smile.
Or
At 3 months old AJ starts to smile.
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3I prefer a comma here to separate the prepositional phrase from the rest of the sentence, but there are many cases in which leading prepositional phrases are acceptable without that comma.– RShieldsCommented Jun 28, 2017 at 14:21
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2 Answers
According to the Purdue Online Writing Lab (Purdue OWL), you should not use a comma after a brief introductory prepositional phrase.
On the page Commas after Introductions, under the section labeled "When not to use a comma," they state:
Is it a single phrase of fewer than five words?
Since "At three months old" is a single prepositional phrase of only four words, you do not need a comma according to this style guide.
Note, however, that this is more a matter of preference than a strict grammatical rule. Other style guides may vary.
It depends on what will follow he sentence. Without a comma it would sound good to my ear to hear "At 3 months old AJ starts to smile. At 4 months he started to laugh" It would be part of a progression. If the next sentence expanded on things like when AJ would smile then to me it would sound better with a comma. For example, "He would see his mom and smile."
