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Babies Develop Differently

If you remember nothing else when becoming a parent for the first time, try to remember the following – every baby is unique. Every baby develops at his or her own personal rate. The growth and development charts are all based on the average baby, but the actual average baby doesn’t exist. These are statistics that are gathered added up and then divided by the number of babies who were sampled.

So if your child development chart tells you that your baby should be walking at 9 months and your baby isn’t remotely interested in this –there’s nothing wrong with your baby. Some babies walk at 9 months, some walk at 11 months and others wait until they are 13 or 14 months of age. Enjoy your baby’s ages and stages as they develop.

Don’t Compare

Don’t compare your baby to anyone else’s whether they are in your family or not. Don’t wonder why the neighbor baby is grabbing things and holding onto them at 3 months and your baby isn’t. Don’t worry if your nephew has a vocabulary of five to ten words by the time they are a year and your baby only mumbles a couple. Don’t compare.

Did I say don’t compare?

Comparison is a Trap

When you get hung up on comparing your baby to every other baby around, you fall into a trap of pushing your child too hard and too fast. You will be setting yourself up for disappointment and you will miss out on so much.

My daughter walked late according to the statistics. She talked late and she didn’t seem to perform as expected according to all the books. If I’d allowed myself to get hung up on that timetable and punching a time clock on her achievements, I would never have gotten to enjoy the wonder she felt and the way she explored her world. I would never have gotten to really enjoy her butt scooting that she loved to do all over the place prior to walking.

So repeat to yourself over and over again and print it out and put it up where you can see it: Babies Develop Differently and that’s a-okay!

Related Articles:

Stages of Baby Fussiness: The First 12 weeks

Your Baby and Emotional and Social Milestones

The Altruistic Child

Baby’s 5 Senses and How They Develop Over the First Year

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About Heather Long

Heather Long is 35 years old and currently lives in Wylie, Texas. She has been a freelance writer for six years. Her husband and she met while working together at America Online over ten years ago. They have a beautiful daughter who just turned five years old. She is learning to read and preparing for kindergarten in the fall. An author of more than 300 articles and 500+ web copy pieces, Heather has also written three books as a ghostwriter. Empty Canoe Publishing accepted a novel of her own. A former horse breeder, Heather used to get most of her exercise outside. In late 2004, early 2005 Heather started studying fitness full time in order to get herself back into shape. Heather worked with a personal trainer for six months and works out regularly. She enjoys shaking up her routine and checking out new exercises. Her current favorites are the treadmill (she walks up to 90 minutes daily) and doing yoga for stretching. She also performs strength training two to three times a week. Her goals include performing in a marathon such as the Walk for Breast Cancer Awareness or Team in Training for Lymphoma research. She enjoys sharing her knowledge and experience through the fitness and marriage blogs.