It’s not a race: milestones and your baby

As you hold your beautiful baby in your arms, I want you to know that he or she will grow to meet each milestone on his or her unique timeline. Yes there will be some early babies, and yes there will be some babies who experience delays. But no matter what, they’re your baby!

As a 4th time mom I see this time and time again in my baby groups and among friends…the early milestone talks and posts, along with the inevitable anxiety that follows, especially from new parents who don’t yet know what’s normal.

With every milestone our babies hit, there is actually a relatively wide range of what’s considered normal. And it’s important to note that there will always be outliers, on both ends! Those few little super-babies who are crawling at 6 months, saying their first word at 8 months, walking at 9 months, etc. etc. etc. can make us wonder why our own babies are “behind”. You’ll seen it with the early milestones of smiling and laughing and holding toys, and it won’t end any time soon. 😫😅 The worries never quite end, from walking to jumping to reading and beyond.

It’s normal to worry, “why not my baby?” when you see these milestones being hit early or hear from your friend that her baby was saying her first word at 8 months. But the truth is that it’s just the beginning of the spectrum, and your baby can say their first word at 12 months and still be well within the range of normal, or can take their first steps at 18 months and not trigger any concern from their pediatrician.

And that’s just speaking to the true early milestones, we’ve yet to even touch on the lovingly overzealous parents who rush their baby’s milestones lol. You know the parents, the ones whose 5 month old happens to babble “mamamama” and they count it as their first word (developmentally this is not considered a first word, it has to have meaning attached) or they walk while holding on to furniture and the parent says their baby is “walking” (this is called “cruising” and is a whole different milestone than walking.)

I advise everyone to have a baby milestone app, a baby book, whatever you like, that tells you what to expect and when! ❤️ Will save you from a lot of stress. (And yes even these are not infallible so check a few different sources if worried.)

You’ll get used to it! Trust me, us parents of older kids are not looking at the outlier genius 12 year olds who go to college and wondering what’s wrong with our own 12 year old that they’re not in college yet. 🤣 Trust your instincts, trust your doctor’s advice, and even in the case that your baby is truly late on some milestones, there are so many great resources out there these days to help! ❤️