Is your child walking, crawling, drooling and pooping when he or she should be? You know what? WHO CARES. Sure – we want to know if eventually little Johnny will walk or talk, but enough of pressuring parents into thinking something is seriously wrong with their child if they don’t fall into someone else’s schedule! You know what? Kids are humans, and we KNOW humans are all different, so is it really so shocking that babies hit their milestones when THEY are ready? I don’t think so.
Of course it makes sense to ensure your child is generally growing and developing as he or she should – but try not to stress too much if the timing isn’t exact. A good example of this would be when I took my daughter at 10 months to the pediatrician for a check up and the doctor asked me if she was waving yet. No, I replied she wasn’t. The doctors look was one of genuine concern and she wanted to “give it another 30 days to see if she hits this important milestone”. I was astounded that this could cause a doctor alarm, I mean this baby was crawling at 6 months, climbing all over everything and could communicate with pretty much everyone what it was she wanted or needed. she she wasn’t “speaking” but trust me, if she wanted what you were eating, or a toy, you knew EXACTLY what she wanted. But she wasn’t waving. Contrary to the good ole doc – I wasn’t concerned. In fact within 2 days we stopped saying “bye bye” and said “hellllllooooooooo!!!!” just to change things up and guess what, SHE WAVED. We packed her up, rushed her to the doctor and cancelled the MRI. I am kidding. We didn’t pack her up, we high fived and knew that our child was brilliant and wonderful and totally on her own schedule, she also prefers waving hello than good bye, go figure.
Children get there in their own time. Will some children need more encouragement than others for certain things? OF COURSE. I mean, I’d like to think that I know everything and can do anything, but chances are if you asked me to rollerblade and brush my teeth I couldn’t (even though I can do these things separately and I’m 30, so I should be able to do them together right? WRONG not to mention how dangerous would that be! )
Enjoy your kids – keep those “milestone deadlines” on a back burner instead of in the forefront and enjoy every single second. It really does go by too quickly. And the next time a mom, or grandma or anyone else ask if you baby is doing something that he or she isn’t doing yet try responding with something your darling DOES. “Does Little Jonny walk yet?” response: “Not yet, he’s too busy speed crawling to figure it out, or nope – but he can play Bach’s Minuet like it’s nobody’s business”.
Happy Parenting!
The Cheeky Doula.