Why are everyone elses babies so advanced?

[roslily]

My ds is 8 weeks old. At 6 weeks he sort of smiled and now will smile, but it takes a lot of work! It isn't much in reposnse to us, but he will do it.

He is very alert and loves to watch what is going on. However I saw a friend when her baby was 9 weeks and he was smiling, giggling in reposnse ot songs and peek-a-boo. This is repeated amongst friends I know.

I feel really bad that I am doing something worng to make my ds so slow in developing.

We had to work very hard to get DS1 to smile, up to being about 4 months old - I don't think it's anything to do others being more advanced, it's just his personality coming out

I figured that he was just a grumpy baby!

My son was slower than average developmentally. I didn't smile until 9 weeks. He also was slow to walk and had a child physio between the ages of two years old and 3 and half years old. His speech was also delayed due to glue ear.

However at the age of seven you would never know he was a later developer. In fact he did really well in his SATs last summer.

My daughter's development has been a lot quicker and I have no idea what I have done differently.

Unless the child is subjected to child abuse (Ie. like those poor children in Romanian orphanages several years ago.) I don't think that your child's enviromnent (ie. parenting) makes that much of a difference.

Children develop in their own time and the age that babies reach their developmental milestones has little to do with later intelligence provided they have a good loving family.

Oh dear it's a case of NCT-itis I almost drove myself insane comparing my PFB to everyone else's baby in my NCT class, on everything- sleep, smiling, babbling, pointing, rolling over, eating etc etc. It took me about 6-7 months to finally chill out. I really, really hope you'll be smarter than me and realise soon that it's all pointless, your baby will do everything in his/her time...

I now just smile and think ' at least I'm not a pushy parent' when other NCT babes are behaving like junior einstein's and mine is just grubbing in the dirt with a spade. there's always a call for builders

It isn't that I want a baby einstein. Partly it is selfish as I want some payback! He screams a lot (we are investigating reflux) so he is very hard work and I feel awful most of time. It was so lovely to see my friend interacting with her son, while mine just screamed the place down!

roslily it can be so hard when everyone else seems to have an "easy" baby... dd1 was also really hard work, v colicky, no sleep whatsover for 6 months (and then very little for the next 12), and i had all these people telling me how their babies napped for hours and slept through the night etc not to mention apparently sang twinkle twinkle at 3 months.

you are going through a very hard time- be easy on yourself, you do not need the added pressure of comparing yourself against other people.

Hi Roslily, you're having such a hard time but try and hang on in there. Your DS will get more rewarding and interactive. My DD was soooo difficult for the first 3 months or so. She cried and cried, rarely smiled and would never ever sit quietly in a bouncy chair like other people's babies. But it did improve. She's now 7.5 months and laughs and giggles and is just the cutest little girl. I would never have thought this was possible when she was the same age as your DS. You just have to try and get through this really hard time as best you can and accept that you have a difficult baby - it's not your fault. It will get easier. And your DS will remember nothing of it.

Pregnantpeppa 9 months is not 14 months younger than 20 months, it's 11 months, isn't it?!

OP, your DS sounds perfect. In my (limited!) experience babys who spend less time on social skills tend to develop more quickly with gross motor skills, so he could be an early walker.

But I could be imagining that!

Cos they're all lying.

Doh.

I think also you tend to see the "best" side of others' babies - you don't tend to see them in full meltdown/terror mode, so yours can seem really hard work in comparison.

They tend to do things in random orders anyway I find - my DS smiled at about 2 weeks but didn't laugh at all until 6 months. He crawled and cruised in the same week but didn't sit up until over a month later. He just took his first steps a few days ago but didn't seem to notice that he had done it so we are now waiting very impatiently for him to realise he can walk!

Don't worry, at two weeks someone at the ante natal class was saying her baby had already looked intently at all the paintings in their house and this proved he would be an artist.
I didn't have the heart to tell her his eyesight focus wouldn't be good enough to make out anything except big blobs on the wall.
6 years on, he is not the slightest bit interested in art...

My DD did not smile or walk or cut teeth or anything according to milestones. She is her own person and that is the way she works.

At 8 weeks your baby will need to poo and eat, all else is optional.

Babies and children are their own people - they do what they do, and in their own good time. Most of them turn out just fine.
When we are pregnant, all we hope for is the eventual safe delivery of a live, healthy baby and at that time, we look no further than that. However, once the baby is found to be live and healthy, they enter the "competition" to be more "advanced" than other babies. This is ridiculous and is more about the parent than the baby.
Comparison is IMO, odious and meaningless.
Enjoy your baby and have fun with him.

frogs

One of my 'mates', the way she carries on you'd think her DD came out of the womb tap dancing and speaking fluent Spanish. Comparing babies never ends well and competitive mums are best avoided!

Try to enjoy your DS' development, it's so much fun seeing them do things for the first time when they get that proud look on their faces

Newborns are hard work and you don't get much feedback but it does get easier!

Don't even get involved-enjoy your baby. They do things in their own time-it isn't a race.

But your baby is just an eeny weeny tiny 8weeks old, please don't go there with the competitive parenting, especially so young.

Your ds is probably just more serious than your friends babies - there's nothing wrong with that, developmentally or otherwise.
My dd1 was such an serious soul who turned into such an earnest toddler. She is now a delightful, smily, sensible and still a little serious 9yo

I meant to say, my friend's DS walked at 13 months and now she keeps saying "DS, teach GAL's DD how to walk" (she is 14 months old and has already taken her first steps, just not 'walking!'

Resisted the temptation to reply "DD, teach friend's DS how to sleep 13 hours a night solid and stop waking his Mummy and Daddy up in the wee small hours".

Thought it but didn't say it!

When they are teenagers you really can't tell who walked at 10months and who walked at 18months, or who smiled first! It really doesn't matter.

Rosily, I had one of those.
It passes; when everyone with a placid dc hits todler phase and wonders what happened, you breeze through most of it thinking it is a walk in the park compared to the early days.

(I was always tempted to say something along the lines of "ds is just fractious as he was up late reading war and peace". You could try it and let me know.....)