"He should be doing X after Y months."

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bigpaul

New member
When my sister had her baby a few years ago, I remember her having everything down to a science. She would estimate when they baby should be crawling, babbling, etc.

I always thought it kind of spoiled the surprise and took away some of the magic. It felt similar to watching someone follow a guide while playing a videogame and knowing what to expect, thus ruining a lot of the game's excitement.

Now that I have a baby, I can't believe how much research I've done just to make sure he's healthy. I get her now. Preparation is very important. Has anyone had a similar experience?
 
@bigpaul Mixed bag as far as i can tell. On the one hand, it creates a lot of stress and afaik a lot of babies just hit milestones at different times. Some milestones may be skipped.

On the other hand, if there are legitimate developmental issues you'll want to recognize them early. You may also want to do exercises to help your child hit those milestones.

Personally, i track loosely with my 7 month old. He's knocking them out though, so its easy for me to be kinda laissez faire about it.
 
@katrina2017 It does create a lot of stress, but on the other hand (oh wait, you've used that hand already... on a different hand?) it could also avoid stressing out. I was spooked because my little guy wasn't using words around his 2nd birthday. I kept bringing it up to my wife, like 'I can't understand him, shouldn't he be talking by now?'. It stressed me out for weeks and my wife just kept telling me he's fine and I don't need to worry about it. I didn't do the research, I just kept comparing him to a friend's (extremely early developed) kid. So much so that I asked the pediatrician at his 2 year check up, and even the doctor wasn't worried.

A month later, we couldn't shut the kid up.
 
@heismysaviour This is so reassuring to me. Our lad is nearly two and barely knows 2-3 words. I'm equally stressed because he seems so far behind socially even though he's a really smart little boy
 
@heismysaviour My kid was the extremely advanced talker, and I got so many questions from other people I knew with kids around her age, especially ones a little older, that I wound up doing a bunch of research on it just to reassure them that their kid was fine.

Her one big hurdle has and still is fine motor skills, it just never interested her so when I have time that's what we work on, mostly just playing games and coloring.

I definitely think it's great to have a good ballpark idea about what's normal for your kid at what age, and what isn't a big deal. And if if they're lagging behind it's good to know what you can help them work on. But generally you also don't have to make a huge deal out of most delays in development nearly as much people seem to think, they'll come around, just be patient.
 
@4lilcubs It also feels like a lot of pressure. You're born into the world and you have two people much larger than you showing distress when you don't do what other kids do.

But I can see how important it is to make sure they are developing properly.
 
@4lilcubs Same here. My boy is 6 months exactly and I’ve heard and seen that he should be on his way or already sitting up. I was concerned for like a day but I’m not gonna pressure him to do something he can’t right now. Adding stress to him and myself, so last week I started some exercises to that helps him along and he has responded quite well, it will be no time before he gets there I’m sure. Just a little patience and guidance and babies will get there when their ready, that’s the important part.
 
@fortherecord My son was supposed to do the same. Nothing. Then around the 7th month mark, he sat up and started crawling all in a week's time and two weeks later, he was trying to stand up by pulling himself up.

Kids can be weird. They aren't going to it on schedule. Encourage them to do those things but don't sweat it. It will come.
 
@bigpaul My partner is super data-driven and can be a little excessive with the milestone timelines, so what we have tried to do is focus less on "doing X by Y months" and more on "X is the next milestone, what exercises/etc. can we do to help get there". It's definitely helped calm down some of the monthly birthday freakouts.
 
@l_allison The literature really needs to shift on these things. Human development is so very non-linear when viewed at the micro level. You can literally take all those milestones and safely say "in the next 5yrs, you child will do all of these things, here's a list of the things that will most probably happen first, but it's not set in stone" yet everything is presented like it's a timeline with badges for each step...
 
@bigpaul Milestones are usually a range but if you start to worry talk about it with you pediatrician. My first was a late walker but by 1 year wasn't even making an attempt to crawl. We have her until her birthday to try but didn't. Talked with the doc who wasn't too concerned because she was healthy otherwise. Got a physical therapy referral and turned out she didn't have much core strength because she sat odd and was a content child. 5 months later of doing simple things and encouraging her to move she's walking.
 
@bigpaul Those milestones vary wifely among babies. I've seen some that crawl at 4 and half months, and others that crawl at 9 or 10. My own daughter is almost walking and never crawled (she just sort of rolled and slithered around)

Unless there's a severe delay, or some noticeable problem, they aren't a reason to concern in most cases, but always talk to your doctor.

I'm just one example, but I didn't start walking or talking until I was close to 2. And now, as a fully grown human, I can do both and I'm not bad at either if I don't say so myself.

All that matters, at least in my view, is showing your baby all the love, support, and attention you can give. Everything else will come in time
 
@bigpaul Milestones are huge ass guesstimates and far from exact science. All babies are different and that's normal. Anecdotal, but my kids are 2 years apart, stable household situation, and they both were so different. Younger one figured out utensils before even the older one did, but it took him until 3 to start putting sentences together. Oldest was having conversations at 2.
 
@lynnie7 This! The problems with averages, nobody is average... Good for making pretty graphs and maybe analysis of large populations, but terrible for individual tracking and policy.
 
@bigpaul with milestones, it’s important to look at the upper limits to decide if it’s a concern. if the baby hasn’t reached that point by x months, they’re probably fine developmentally. I would say as long as you’re getting relatively normal medical care, and there aren’t developmental concerns, then your baby will develop as they see fit.
 
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