What was your gifted child like as a baby?

[Peridotty]

Hi! What could your gifted children do when they were a baby? I read that a sign of gifted ness is a first word before 9months. Is that the best sign?
My baby is 8 months old. Pretty advanced in her motor skills I would say compared to others that I know (rolling from 3 months, sitting independently at 5 months, crawling and pulling to stand at 6/7 months, standing independently at 7 months). However she has no interest in books, she just gets grumpy when I put a book in front of her, all she wants to do is crawl and pull up to stand!!! She doesn’t make many speech sounds although she makes lots of vowel sounds in general. Only just started making ‘ge ge ge’ sounds at 8 months when she is whining. No Ms or Bs yet. She doesn’t look like she pays attention when we are speaking. Doesn’t try to imitate our speech or mouths.
So i was wondering what did your babies do? And is my baby basically not gifted haha.

He hid it well. He was laid back. Did nothing early. He liked chamber choirs. Does that count?

That's true. Being gifted means you're bored and pretending to learn unless the class is tailored for you.

I wouldn’t think read too much into it. I remember being absolutely amazed when DHs niece was speaking in full, clear sentences at 18 months and actually engaging in conversation. Apparently she had said her first words very early and she was clearly miles ahead of our similarly aged DS. Fast forward five years, and she’s not showing signs of gifted. She is a bright, outgoing little girl, but the gap between her and DS has closed a lot, and they got very similar school reports last year.

An absolute delight. He was so engaged and engaging. Hit all milestones early, except walking which was 12 months. The NCT group gave him the name 'benchmark baby'. He was happy. First word at 8 months. Always trying to make people laugh.
He's now 7 and very sensitive. He is bright, but only really stands out in maths. He was excellent at building towers as a baby, and was very neat and tidy. A very neat eater. He was great at jigsaws. Now loves chess.

Oh, and he coukd recite stories and sing in tune very early. I have videos of him just aged 2, singing in perfect pitch and reciting whole stories word for word. He loves classical music.

Milestones really do vary.

Pathways.org has good checklists from 0-3years and information on each stage. Each child is different, but it is helpful to check with your health visitor if you have concerns, especially when they do the developmental checks. Language and motor skills can develop at different rates, and speed with one doesn't equate to speed with the other.

Early speech can be, on occasion, an early sign of giftedness I'm sure, but sometimes it just means that the child starts speaking early. Like early walkers may become Olympic champions at running, others don't!

I have a gifted DS (the other one is average!!) that my 'average' son had his first words at 9 months old, but my G&T son had his first word at well over 2 years old. In fact, my G&T child missed every single milestone, both in physical and speech development. But he was good at puzzles, could identify numbers and letters in books, could concentrate for long periods on one toy, liked 'construction' toys and those that you can put in categories.

He is now 13 and is very happy and settled in a regular state school, where his academic performance is very good. He plays 5 musical instruments and seems to pick up any instruments and be able to play it very quickly. He is crap at every sport except climbing and go-karting (if that's even a sport).

I have 3 kids both DD's starting speaking early.. people always comment that they talk like adults now and are 9 & 7 which yes the vocabulary and understanding is impressive but annoying when they argue with me .DS is 3.5 and has a speech delay, he had hearing issues (both ears) from 9 months to 2.5 years, he is talking now but still behind his peers. He has always had great motor skills though, walked quick, ran quick. Now he's really speedy.

All kids have strengths and weaknesses so parents shouldn't compare. Whether they were a quick talker, walker etc doesn't even matter when they get older. I've never met and adult who has put there success down to them speaking or walking early as a baby. I know parents are proud of there kids and want to show off what they can do though.

Like a baby.

Amazed by all of your gifted babies! My baby is now 9 Months old. She is babbling a lot now but no ‘real’ words. She did say mama and dada today quite clearly but I think they’re just sounds. Doesn’t count as true words right?
She can stand on her own and walk when pushing a coffee table or her activity table.
I’ve been letting her touch and sometimes chew on her books! she has ripped a couple though she is very curious about everything.

My gifted child was a great mimic to start with, copying noises and facial expressions according to his red book I've written 8/9months, so first actual word was hard to figure out. Always made lots of noises with intent, once he did start talking he didn't bloody shut up, it was like a constant stream of whatever was on his mind. Could have a proper good chat about 18 months. He had a really clockwork routine too from being very young and a very 'easy' baby, very odd!

Empathetic as a baby, he'd be upset if he saw other people upset eg on TV, would always do his best to join in conversations and always concerned with what other people were feeling. Very patient and concentrated on things for ages- if he started a puzzle he wouldn't move until he'd finished it. Was reading books without pictures and demonstrating comprehension at about 3. Didn't even try to crawl until 1 and then didn't walk until 18 months. He's fine now though!

Always feels a little awkward talking about him as gifted but he is. I'm proud of all my kids however they turn out.

My daughter was born in the 1970's. It turned out that she was gifted. I had no idea at the time, junior schools would never give you information about how bright your child was compared to others. I didn't realise she was extremely bright until secondary school.

What I remember about her babyhood is this. She was exhausting. She did not sleep at all in the day after four weeks old, and would only drop off about 10 at night. She held up her head early and focussed early. Crawled at 6 months and walked at 9. I don't think she talked early and wasn't particularly interested in books until she went to school. What she did an awful lot of was live in her imagination with imaginery friends even though she had the normal amount of real friends.

I was a gifted child and I believe dd is too, we both showed a lot of signs that we were 'thinkers' and didn't do things on instinct if that makes sense. So some things we did earlier, some things later, and some not at all.

We both didn't crawl and hated tummy time, dd walked unaided at 6.5 months (and made her legs bow). I walked at around 9 months but I was a bigger baby.

Dd was & is behind on climbing trees and general playground apparatus confidence, she is quite 'can't do' about things even when she sees her peers do them, she has to be talked through it and have 999 ways explained to her of how it's ok and zero chance of it going wrong. Conversely, I was very dismissive of height and other dangers and I used to terrify my parents with my theories.

Dd said mama (not babbling) but actually to call dw at just after 4months. No one believed us until they saw it themselves because we could get her to replicate it. We played a hide and seek game and I would call mama and that's how she learnt it.

We got dd to say mama it in front of HV too just so it's recorded in her red book. It could've been a bit cringey lol but the HV was lovely and she put her full name instead of initials and joked that she did that so that the E! channel can come and find her to do an interview if dd becomes famous when she's older. We laughed that everyone will probably think she's some fake that the producers paid to lie/exaggerate.

My gifted child did piss all as a baby except eat and stare. He weighed 2 stone on his first birthday and had few words. He was bang-on average on all developmental skills. The nursery that he went to at 1 did say that he was a 'thinker', but I thought they were just being nice; he wasn't very social or mobile. By 2 he seemed bright, could do complex jigsaw puzzles, and more manipulation with numbers than is common at that age. But he hardly spoke a word before 3. It wasn't until he started school that he started to seem gifted; by that point he could read fairly well, and was reading 200 page books before he was 5.

My non-gifted child seemed like a genius as a baby. Even the midwives in the hospital commented that he was 'clever'. He spoke with great fluency and articulacy before he was two. By the time he started school he was (very happily) bang on average.

So I don't know. There are signs of giftedness in babies, but do they result in gifted children? Equally, so gifted children become gifted adults? Perhaps development is just not linear.