Chasing Milestones

It’s a dangerous thing, talking to other mums. Without any real reason, my competitive mind turns everything I hear into a developmental target. I know, intellectually, that (within a curve) children develop at very different speeds and with milestones occurring in different sequences (which I find mind boggling, but that’s a matter for a different post). But what I know matters not; what leaps into my head whenever I hear of such an accomplishment is that little Jimmy can pull himself up on the furniture / sing the alphabet / complete quadratic equations and Young Sir can’t.

It’s a daft thing, really – it doesn’t matter (at least so long as we’re still within the curve) and I’m in no hurry to have to staple everything down to protect it from the forces of toddlerhood. And yet, there it is. But still, there goes my brain.

The worst was with food – I’ve read a fair bit about Baby Led Weaning, which is the precocious name used to refer to giving babies bits of food to feed themselves with (in lieu of the puree stage). While I don’t think there’s anything wrong with puree I am exceptionally lazy and this method of feeding my baby seemed to fit well with that. However. The reading I’ve done suggests that it’s best not to start until 6 months of age, when the gut is a bit more developed, whereas babies on puree often start a bit earlier. And so we watched all his peers smearing food goo everywhere with adorable little grins, while we impatiently waited for the opportunity to give him a bit of potato to nom on.

Now I don’t know why it mattered – Young Sir is a champion eater, and puts away an impressive amount of food – but at the time it seemed we were behind, that he might be lacking nutrients or calories or the opportunity to learn table manners (ha!)

Have you had any struggles with keeping up, or are you able to blissfully disengage from competition and enjoy watching your child’s development in its own sweet time?