I started thinking about baby milestones when my daughter got to be thirteen months old and not yet walking independently. My oldest was a confident walker by his first birthday and our second son was practically running by nine months so what was up with her?? Was it because there’s an eight year age gap between our middle and third child so she didn’t get the same attention as the other two? Is it because she lives in a household with two independent brothers and two self-employed parents so we haven’t given her the same opportunities to explore and practice? Or maybe it’s just because she is petite, I carry her everywhere to make things easier on my 40-year-old self and we have tile floors in our current house that aren’t very baby-friendly.
I think plenty of moms wonder if they’re supposed to worry about baby milestones. My experience suggests we shouldn’t.
Thank goodness for the wisdom of being a third-time mom because even though nearly every article I read about the topic of baby milestones gives the disclaimer that “every baby develops at their own rate” and reassures the reader that most babies are perfectly normal, experiencing it for the third time has definitely reinforced that truth.
With our first, I went from reading my pregnancy journal daily to checking my Dr. Sears baby book to see if he was on track developmentally. With our second, I just compared him to his brother and since he was earlier in most ways, I figured he was fine. I remember once he was sitting up and playing, I read somewhere that babies should be able to stack blocks by such-and-such an age and I jumped up, grabbed a bag of wood blocks, stacked them up and watched with relief as he stacked them perfectly on the first try. With our daughter eight years later? I have only checked the book for two things: crawling and teeth. Turns out she’s well within what’s normal.
I probably wouldn’t worry about baby milestones at all this except my weekly baby development update emails are often titled things like “Early indicators of developmental delays” or “Is your baby meeting these important milestones?” that I HAVE to read because as a responsible mom, I want to know if I’m missing any signs of delay or impeding my baby’s progress (am I reading with her enough? Does she have the right educational toys?).
It’s also easy to worry about baby milestones because everyone asks me about my daughter’s. It cracks me up because they usually want to compare to their son, daughter, grandchild or neighbor’s kid (even if they had a baby 40 years in the past or have no clue what’s “normal”).
I supposed rather than worry needlessly, we should just be informed in case we could catch something early and be able to intervene.
So go ahead and ask me about her milestones–just give me a sec to check Instagram since it’s the 2018 version of a baby book. We all just have to remember that milestones are only guidelines and as cliché as it sounds, every kid really does follow their own unique timeline that’s just as unpredictable as each pregnancy and birth. It’s worth checking on but not obsessing over. I’m not going to lose sleep over how long my baby sleeps as long as she’s happy and healthy. I will take credit for her cheerful disposition, though–I know she’s more relaxed because this time around, so am I.
