Stop Focusing On Exact Milestone Dates

When you have never had a child before, you are often wondering when they will meet their next milestone. When do they start crawling? When do they start walking? When do they start to talk? And so on and so forth. These are exciting times and exciting milestones for any parent and child, but even more so on your first child. It is pretty amazing to see your baby grow into a full functioning human being.

Of course, since you’ve never had a child, you’re relying heavily on the knowledge of other people to know when a child should be reaching certain milestones. You may have a generic idea of when they should meet some of these milestones, but there are simply so many different     milestones that they’re going to be meeting that it’s impossible to know all of them - you’ll do lots of reading and learning.

While it’s good to learn about when these milestones should be happening, you need to keep in mind that every single child is different. There is a general timeframe of when a child should be meeting certain milestones, but your child could be well early or well late on meeting those milestones. It can be exciting or nerve wracking when the hit or miss milestones, but you simply need to take a breath.

Every parent wants their child to be the healthiest and best that they can be. Generally, you want your child to meet milestones on or before the expected date - that makes you feel like your child is ahead of the curve for some reason. It’s natural to think that because your child is reading words by the time they're three years old, they’re going to be a genius and they’re set up for success.

Similarly, if your child is behind the curve, you think that your child is going to be far behind. If they don’t start talking until their three or four years old, you believe they’re going to be way behind their peers, and what are you going to do for them. Just step back, take a breath, and realize it’s going to be alright. Every child is different. Just because they’re slow to meet a milestone doesn’t mean they’re in trouble.

Just because your child reaches a milestone early or misses a milestone by a lot does not mean your child has any serious advantage or disadvantage. It simply means they met that milestone on that data. That’s right - the end of the world isn’t coming. You will survive and so will your child. Don’t freak out like it’s the end of the world - work towards helping them the best you see fit to get them where they should be.

There are times when you should be concerned about your child’s progression, but you should be discussing these milestones with your doctor and consulting to determine if there is actually an issue. The majority of time, your doctor will tell you that things are fine, and they will end up being fine. If not though, your doctor can help assess next steps on how to best proceed. Don’t take advice from random internet strangers - listen to your doctor.

Kids hit and miss milestones all the time. It often doesn’t mean much. Talk with your doctor if you’re concerned, but don’t freak out if things are fine. Enjoy the time with your child.