What is the mystique of charting baby’s life
to the day? By the time they get to be
teenagers, you will be asking yourselves, “Where did the time go?” …or “He’s
getting so old? You’ll then chart the
stages of life by the year in school.
Did you ever hear the parent of a fourteen year old say, “My child is
168 months, 15 days old?” We don’t even say the number of years any more. We say, “He’s a teenager!” or “He’s entering
Freshman year of high school.” Your
teenager still has ages and stages of growth and development as a teenager, but now it’s more like you try your best
to somehow make it through the teenage years –without losing your mind! But for now, babyhood is magical, especially
your first child! You have that pile of
“How baby grows” books on the coffee
table for easy reference, or you have some app
on your phone to give you appropriate activities to sync to baby’s stage of
growth at 14 months. 
There are charts of the
“average” times. You know what I mean!
The average time it takes to…turn over from front to back and then to front
again…average time to toilet train. If
it’s a boy add about six months more to the chart! …average time to read. It used to be six years, six months, but now
with Baby Einstein and competition to be weight-
listed at Harvard, it’s more like six months,
six weeks. We go to the docs and the
first thing we tell people is how our baby stacks up. “He’s in the 82%ile for weight and 50%ile for
height. Against whom? What are your babies being normed against?
Who are they competing with, anyway, at 14 months of age? So, if your child is only in the 50%ile in
height should you be concerned since your baby is sooooo “average”? Why not place him on a rack and stretch him
for a couple of hours a day? I’m just
kidding, of course. But that’s how silly all this norming is. If your child is in the 82%ile in weight does
that mean you should be proud of him because he is fatter than 32% of the baby
population? …or should you place him on
baby lock down and ration out his food until he gets back to that 50%ile?
I do understand that there
are guidelines or benchmarks by which we keep a close eye on baby. But we, as a nation, have gone too far. We live by the guidelines, forgetting that
Baby is going to do and be just exactly what he/she is! No more, no less. And that should be fine with you as
parents.
Always challenge just
where these benchmarks are coming from.
If it’s from doc, ask him when these guidelines were established? Are they current, relevant to your baby? We
in this culture are proud to be parents of babies who are taller than the
average, even though height should be irrelevant, except if lack of growth is a
danger signal for baby. I am concerned
at the amount of time parents spend in obsessing about height and weight and
training time for pooping. I am sure
doctors are alerting parents to the average in the hopes that parents will use
these growth benchmarks as a means of observing wellness in baby. Sometimes benchmarks are just that, nothing
less, nothing more.
Tip: Live your life with your baby in wonderment of just
how miraculous each day is. No two
babies are exactly alike in their age/stage growth and development. It is possible to learn more through
observing your baby and through your instincts as a parent than any chart gives
as a barometer of health and wellness. After all, nobody knows your baby the
way you do. Use the benchmarks as
suggestions, and use your own best practices to help baby develop into his/her
own special self!
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