It’s the big day they’ve been looking forward to. My twin boys turned 6 today! It is certainly a major milestone for the kids as well as for the parents. Here are the reasons why:

• 6 is the age when they start primary school. Until a year ago, kindergarten in Switzerland was not obligatory, so that for many kids, 6 is the year when they actually “leave the nest” for the first time.

• 6 is the age when kids start paying. From now on, they will be paying for public transport, museums, swimming pools, shows, etc. For the kids, 6 is the age when they can have their very own – albeit reduced – ticket. They are no longer the “gratis” babies who had to sit on mom/dad’s laps at ice hockey matches. They will have their own seat! Oh, how proud they are. (And oh, how much more do mommy and daddy have to spend now).

• 6 is the age when kids can do much more. There are games, rides, or toys that are only accessible to 6+ kids, including that big slide and the 3-meter diving board at our local swimming pool.

• 6 is also the age of the big doctor’s check up, when inoculations are finally completed, and when the kids are checked for school readiness.

In addition to these milestones, we have agreed that a couple things can happen once they turn 6, namely:

• They can choose the clothes they wear in the morning, although mommy still has to give the final approval based on weather conditions.

• They can go and shop for their birthday presents.

• They can brush their teeth in the evenings on their own.

Things went fairly well even though they went for sleeveless shirts and shorts on a not-so-warm day. It took them two hours to decide what to buy with their birthday budget of 10 Swiss Francs (about 8 US dollars).

In the end, they refused all suggestions from us parents – from swimming fins, to a ping pong set, etc, and opted for a little stuff toy instead (much to Dad’s dismay and mom’s delight). As for the tooth brushing, it went pretty well despite a mishap with the toothpaste.

It was just 6 years ago, they were born premature and much smaller than normal babies. I remember the weeks when they had to stay in the neonatal clinic. I remember how we lived through post partum depression, the superhot summer of 2003, four months of breast milk pumping, countless sleepless nights, tummy aches, teething pains, and respiratory tract infections. Those are the times when I had my doubts whether I could make it. But then I also remember the first smiles, the first steps, the first words, all the other “firsts”. My six years have come and gone. And I guess I’m allowed to say: we made it! Good night, my babies.

It is so, so, so exciting to see your baby take her first steps. The expression of amazement, concentration, and joy on her face, the adorable, wobbly, tentative steps, the priceless moment when they realize that nothing is holding them up. Cue startled expression, loss of balance, and ker-plop onto the floor.

Having spent the last couple of months looking after Daycare Baby, a crawling baby who is now 16 months old, the most common thing I was asked by friends and strangers alike was “is she walking yet?”

She wasn’t, and I know that the average baby starts walking somewhere around their first birthday. So, she’s later than average, but still in the normal range. And just lately, although I know the question is well intentioned, it’s getting just a little annoying.

There’s more to babies that just walking. Do you ever feel that too much pressure is placed on just a couple of milestones, first steps, first word?

$20 robot dogs from the toy section of Target walk and talk. Our babies are infinitely more complex than that, so how about some love for other, less lauded milestones?

Recognizing his/her own name. Babies realize that the word you keep using around them means that you are talking to them somewhere between 5 and 8 months. At birth, babies don’t have much concept of themselves as an individual. Recognizing that they they have a name is part of building their own identity.

Empathy for others. Even as early as six months, babies get upset when other children cry. Learning to understand other people’s emotions is a major factor that separating humans from robot dogs.

Understanding that objects have a function. Before about 12 months, everything that’s not food or other very familiar objects is simply an interesting plaything. Or a boring object. But one day, baby realizes that all these objects like keys, cellphones, hairbrushes, are for something, and that’s when she’ll stop chewing the toy cellphone and instead, hold it to her ear and babble into it.

Building towers from blocks Your budding engineer might be able to do this at 9 months, maybe not until over a year. Stacking things on top of other things helps babies understand how the physical world works.

Sometimes parents can get caught up in the milestone charts, and almost believe that if their baby walks late, then everything about their development is behind. In almost all cases – not true.

Babies have so much to learn, and they all do it in a different order. So the baby who walks late, is busy developing less dramatic, but equally valuable skills. And babies who walk early may learn to do other things a little later. It’s all totally normal.

If you are worried about your baby’s development, check with his/her pediatrician.

What has been your favorite unsung milestone for your baby? One of mine is when my son figured out at only a few months where the milk was, and started yanking my shirt down. OK, only when he did it at home. Another one is when he worked out how to slide down a slide by himself. How about you?

Fellow blogger Brit recently posted about her favorite things about children of different ages. I saw this as a great opportunity to write a blog post about a few funny stories that have been on my mind. Until I read Brit’s post, I wasn’t sure how to give them any coherency.

My daughter is just approaching five months old, and in the past month, seems to be learning something new everyday. To answer Brit’s question… What’s Your Favorite Thing About Your Baby Right Now?…

My favorite thing about my five-month-old is her new discoveries and adventures each day! (And based on Brit’s post, I can look forward to this continuing for the next year or so!)

• Since I introduced solid food a few weeks ago, she now tries to feed herself! This is an adventure everyday, twice a day. Her favorite food is string beans. Yesterday, apparently, I wasn’t feeding her fast enough, because she picked up the bowl with both hands and started eating straight from the bowl. I gave in and let her have the spoon, and she made little scooping motions in the bowl and then put the spoon in her mouth. You should have seen the look of surprise on her face when (with my help) she actually got some string beans onto her spoon, which then made it into her mouth!
• Two days ago she discovered the water running from the faucet into the bath tub. She reached out, trying to touch it, so I moved her baby tub closer to the faucet. Now she loves holding her hand under the running water during her bath.
• A few days ago I blew a raspberry at her. She began laughing, and then stuck out her little tongue and did the same thing right back at me. We ate dinner at a restaurant the other night, and she was trying desperately to get the attention of the couple in the booth next to ours. When nothing else worked, she blew a raspberry at them. Uh-oh.
• Just last night, she reached out to touch her image in the mirror and, to her amazement, realized it was flat – not actually another baby over there! She turned around to her Daddy, then, and touched him. I guess she was making sure he was really there. Then she turned back and touched the mirror.
• For the past week or so, she’d been taking every opportunity to try to get her foot in her mouth. The other day, my husband came out of the nursery looking slightly irritated but mostly amused. “She’s started sucking on her toes,” he said. “It makes it quite difficult to change her.”

I laughed. “Oh, so she finally figured that out, huh?”

It’s also a lot of fun to see her suddenly take interest in a toy she didn’t care about at all a week ago. The whole world is brand new to her, and, as I see things through her eyes, the most mundane parts of life become intriguing to me, as well.

I guess these are the developmental milestones you don’t read about in the parenting books.

Parents, what were some of your favorite moments in your infant’s life that mark the next stages of development?

Throughout my life I’ve gone through phases where I write poetry. Unlike other writing, which is a job, I find it relaxing, more like a game. My daughter just turned four months old, and I realized I still hadn’t written a poem for her.

I’m happy that the Babies Online site  owner has permitted me to share some of my poems, here, and I hope that other moms will relate to the themes. Maybe some Babies Online readers or fellow bloggers would like to share their own creative writing, too?

Milestones, Memories and “Mom-guilt”

I want to capture every memory
In poetry, pictures and prose
My every thought, your every step
Recorded for you to know.

The way your whole face smiles
When Daddy looks at you
And how you want to cuddle–
With us the whole night through.

But diapers and feedings and peek-a-boo
Leave little time for introspection
And as I hold you close I pray
I’m leading you in the right direction.

I wonder years from now
If you’ll look back and see
So many blank pages in your baby book
And wish I’d done it differently

When souvenirs of your youth are scarce
You’ll want to know the truth.
I should have taken time to write it down–
But I was too busy loving you.

]]> http://blogs.babiesonline.com/baby/milestones-memories-and-mom-guilt/feed/ 2 http://blogs.babiesonline.com/baby/babys-first-solid-food/ http://blogs.babiesonline.com/baby/babys-first-solid-food/#comments Wed, 04 Feb 2009 20:25:22 +0000 Dawn Allcot http://blogs.babiesonline.com/?p=9025

I didn’t want to do it. I really wanted to hold out until 6 months to introduce solid foods. Breast milk has all the nutrients she needs right now, and she’s growing up fast enough as it is. Why rush things?

But after sleeping five to seven hour stretches for weeks, Ashley woke up hungry every two hours for two nights straight. I may have let it go on longer, feeling her every two hours and letting her sleep with us, if I didn’t have to work during the day. But there I was, not quite desperate for a full night’s sleep but knowing I couldn’t do this for much longer. I called the pediatrician.

The doctor said there’s a slim chance she teething, but it’s more likely she’s just ready for solid foods. In the past week, Ashley has become much more active—kicking at her toys in her baby gym, wiggling every time I put her down. She’s constantly in motion so I’m sure she’s burning calories like mad. She may be blessed with her father’s metabolism, which would be any female’s dream — lucky kid!

So on Saturday, we placed her in her high chair, snapped on her Winnie-the-Pooh bib and gave Ashley her first taste of cereal. I selected Gerber Organic Oatmeal, as the doctor said rice cereal or baby oatmeal were fine. I eat oatmeal about three times a week for breakfast so I figured the flavor would be “familiar” to her. I’ve read that babies pick up the taste of foods Mom eats in breast milk and during pregnancy.

She ate two mouthfuls and didn’t seem thrilled, mushing it around in her mouth and opening and closing her lips together, a little frown on her face. But I’m optimistic. She’s very young – not even four months yet—so I didn’t think she would accept any solid food at all the first time. If your baby rejects the first solid food, you should wait a week before you try again. But I interpreted two tastes as just short of overt rejection.

I tried again that night – another two mouthfuls. The next evening at dinner, though, she took four tastes, and even licked her lips. She still hasn’t smiled though, and I don’t think she likes the taste of the formula I use to water down the cereal. I never got the hang of pumping breastmilk, unfortunately.

The author of Super Baby Food, which I’m using as a feeding guideline for the first two years, says you don’t have to start a baby on cereal. Another food, watered down to a thin, milky consistency, is just as good. So I may try sweet potatoes next weekend.

Helpful tips for offering solid foods for the first time:

• Iron-fortified cereal is recommended as a first food because allergies to it are extremely rare. My pediatrician said she’d never heard of a case.
• Introduce a new food at breakfast, so if an allergic reaction occurs, it’s less likely to happen in the middle of the night.
• Wait 3 – 5 days before offering a different food, again, to test for allergic reactions.
• Smile and act upbeat when you give your baby food for the first time. She will pick up on your enthusiasm.
• Food can be served room temperature or lukewarm, the same temperature you would serve formula.
• I put the food in a baby bottle and used the bottle warmer to heat it. If you microwave food, stir carefully to avoid any “hot spots.” Microwave heating is not recommended except in a pinch.
• Don’t expect your baby to love it the first time. She may make faces. Go slowly to give her a chance to absorb this new experience.
• If baby turns her head or closes her mouth, stop. She may need to be burped and then you can try again. But if she refuses food twice, pack it up for that meal.
• Don’t forget to take lots of pictures of baby’s first meal!

Before I had a baby, everyone told me how much faster life flies by with kids. And I believed them, in the same way someone has never experienced it can. The same way you believe people who say, “Everything changes once you get married,” but you don’t really know what they mean until you unpack after the honeymoon.

On February 12, my daughter will be four months old and I can’t believe it. She feels so new to us yet it also feels like she’s been a part of our lives forever. Life without her is a rapidly fading memory.

Beginning at about 3 months, she’s been learning something new everyday. She’s becoming more aware of our surroundings and more interactive in her dealings with us. She’s selected her favorite cat out of the four who live with us, has definite preferences in toys, and makes her needs clear in ways that don’t always involve crying.

My husband assembled her high chair the other night, and today I put her in it. Our pediatrician said we can start giving her cereal “at any time” now. Breast milk has everything an infant needs for the first six months of life, and I’d love to hold out that long. But my daughter is an eating machine and I don’t know if I can keep up. I’d prefer solids to formula. After two weeks of sleeping through the night, she was up to eat every 2 hours the past two nights. I’m wondering if she’s not hungry for more than milk. She’s also started trying to grab food off my plate and is close to double her birth weight, which are all indicators that she may be ready to start solid foods.

She offered up a big smile when I placed her in the high chair and began looking around the kitchen, as if waiting for some food. “This is your seat now,” I told her. I’m hoping that even if she doesn’t eat her meals with us, I can place her in the high chair to enjoy mealtime as a family. For the first time in three months, I may get to eat with both hands!

She’s also outgrowing her bassinet (it holds up to 15 lbs.) and we have to make the decision to move her to the crib (I’m not ready for that until she’s sleeping through the night steadily!) or into her Pack and Play bassinet in our room temporarily.

This weekend, we may set up her Exersaucer, too, as it’s definitely a challenge to keep her entertained all day.

I got a little teary-eyed thinking about these changes. This is the next stage. My little girl is growing up and in the blink of an eye, she won’t be my little baby anymore. Now I truly understand what parents mean when they say, “It goes so fast.”

Experts recommend about 30 minutes of tummy time for infants in order to help nurture and encourage fine and gross motor skills, especially those skills that eventually lead to crawling.

Switching a baby’s position frequently also prevents a flat spot on the head, which has become a common problem since the AAP began recommending placing infants on their backs to sleep.

I got a late start on tummy time with my three month old daughter. I didn’t realize we were supposed to start it immediately, so I only started placing her on her tummy about a month ago.

However, she did spend a lot of time belly-down on my tummy while nursing in her first month of life, and her neck muscles were very well-developed right out of the womb. She was holding her head up right from the start! I imagine our inadvertent tummy time during nursing sessions also helped with her core muscle development.

Now that we’ve started a tummy time routine, my daughter hates it! I can see that she gets frustrated because she wants to do things (like crawl) that her body just isn’t ready to do. The most she will tolerate is a few minutes at a time.

Browsing various parenting forums, I discovered that this is a common problem. If your infant can only tolerate tummy time for a few minutes at a time, break it up into short sessions. Try placing her on her tummy for a few minutes at the beginning of every play session. I recommend doing it at the beginning, when she’s fresh and relaxed, rather than tired or frustrated.

There are other things you can do to make tummy time enjoyable:

• Get down on the floor with your baby. This will help her feel like she hasn’t just been left alone on the floor to struggle.

• Hold a toy in front of her, giving her incentive to lift her head and try to move forward.

• Use a Boppy pillow to prop up your baby, that way she doesn’t feel like she’s smashed flat against the floor. Also, don’t be afraid to position her arms so that she is most comfortable, until she learns how to do this herself.

• Make tummy time more fun by singing a song or saying rhymes, so your baby will look forward to this one-on-one time.

• For smaller babies, conduct tummy time on your chest, the way I did in the first month. Lie flat on your back and place baby on her tummy on top of you.

• The requisite reminder: Do not leave baby alone during tummy time, and do not leave the baby on her tummy if she falls asleep. Always place a baby to sleep on her back.

Six 5-minute sessions of tummy time a day will bring you up to the recommended 30 minutes.

But don’t worry if all your baby will do is two minutes at a time.

For instance, with just a handful of 2-minute sessions every day, my daughter is barely up to a full 10 minutes of tummy time a day. But yesterday, she reached an important mobility milestone. I placed her on her tummy for a few minutes while we were playing and I lied down on my tummy next to her. She happened to be in a very good mood.

I brought her favorite toy “Ducky” down with us, as well. Ducky cheered her on with quacks as she made swimming motions with her hands and legs. She tried to grasp the blanket she was lying on in order to pull herself forward.

After a few minutes, she leaned up on her left elbow and decided to change her situation. With a significant amount of grunting, pushing and flailing, she rolled herself over onto her back! Then she gazed up at me with a look of surprise on her face, as if to say, “How did I get into this position?”

Since then, we’ve had four more tummy time sessions, and she’s getting more frustrated than ever. She’s trying to roll over again and it’s not quite working. It’s as if she’s thinking, “I did it once, why can’t I do it now?”

I’m honestly surprised she rolled over so quickly, given how little time she’s spent on her tummy. It just goes to show, babies develop at their own pace and every baby, regardless of how much tummy time she has, will eventually learn all the skills she needs to become a fully mobile toddler.

After crawling, the next motor skills milestone is usually pulling up to a standing position.  Crawling babies are fascinated by what’s in front, and just above them, and they’ll reach up to grab things just above their heads, and then the natural thing to do next is to pull up.

Balance is not good at first, and falling over is going to happen.  Your baby will be grateful for her diaper to cushion her fall. Cloth diapering moms have an advantage here, as cloth diapers are usually thicker and more padded for your little one’s tush.   Those of us with wood floors have to be extra careful about catching baby. Now she’s got some height, this is the first serious opportunity to fall down. Ouch.

The silly thing about pulling up, is that while pulling up seems to come naturally, getting back down again is not so.  Babies pull up, get all excited about being upright. Then little legs get tired, and they don’t know what to do! Either wail, panic, fall over, or all three.

So show your baby how to bend her knees so she can sit herself back down safely. Or you can demonstrate, or ask her older brother or sister to show baby what to do.

Sitting on the bed, or the couch, while your baby pulls up is fun, it’s cute to see her little face peep over the edge, and it makes a good game of peekaboo too. And it’s a good photo opportunity to snap a smiling face.

Next comes cruising along the edge of the couch or the table, and it’s in preparation for one of the most exciting milestones of all – walking!

Learning to walk is the most bittersweet baby milestone. Babies are so utterly delighted that they can do something as amazing as walking you can’t help being as thrilled as they are. But now baby is walking, he’s not a baby any more – he’s a toddler!

What’s a normal age to begin walking? Some babies are taking steps at 8 or 9 months, many babies are walking by 12 months. 13 months is the average age to start walking, and it’s very normal to wait to take steps until 16 or 17 months or even later.

My son was standing solo at 10 months. He’ll be walking soon! Everyone said. He was, however, quite content to stand, then plop down and crawl off. He got so quick at crawling he was faster than our dog, and so couldn’t see the point of walking. By 13 months, no sign of wanting to walk solo, even though he could push a toy with wheels perfectly well, and walk holding my hand if he felt like it.

At that point, the maternal anxiety set in. What if he was behind all the other babies? Was he normal? Was this really late for starting to walk?

He seemed physically able to walk, but just didn’t want to, or didn’t see the point of walking when he could crawl at high velocity. The trouble was, he wanted to crawl when we went to the supermarket or the bank and the hazard of being stepped on was too great.

So I insisted that he walked holding my hand, or else ride in the cart or be carried. After a couple of weeks, he decided he’d rather walk by himself, and off he toddled, at the age of 14 months.

My totally non-scientific observation of babies I know is this: babies who start walking earlier take longer to get walking well, and babies who start later are running around a couple of weeks later.

My son was going up and down steps and running within weeks of starting to walk, just as well as other toddlers his age who had been walking for months.

So in hindsight, he was so busy doing other things, he didn’t try learning to walk. But once he did, as he was older and bigger and stronger, it was easier for him to learn, and get profecient more quickly than if he’d learned at a younger age.

So he’s perfectly normal – as are babies who learn to walk at 8 months, and as are babies who learn at 18 months.

I was chatting with a grandmother who had five children. I asked her how she managed with five, and she said that it was easy raising them. “What’s your secret?” I asked. “Oh, I sent them all outside to play during the day, then they came home for their dinner.”

And if you talk to your grandmother, or great-grandmother, it’s likely she did something very similar with her kids. That was just what you did back then.

Can you imagine a modern mom doing that? Haven’t times changed? And Grandmothers don’t think it’s changed for the better.

Grandmothers are watching in horror as their children turn into over-ambitious, competitive parents with pampered, demanding offspring, according to a new report into how women’s experience of motherhood has changed over the generations.

Grandmothers are worried about their daughters trying to balance motherhood and work and their own lives, the pressure on their grandchildren to attend music classes and gym classes and yoga for babies, prepare a gourmet menu of homemade baby food every day, do exactly the right amount of tummy-time and encourage their babies to meet all their milestones on time – no, make that just a bit earlier than the other babies in their playgroup.

Professor Rachel Thomson, co-director of The Making Of Modern Motherhood report, a study of moms, grandmothers and great-grandmothers, found that

Grandmothers believed the range of choices available to their daughters not only turned mothering into a competition, but also undermined their daughters’ confidence in their ability to care for their children. ‘The gains offered by this story of progress were dwarfed by the losses in the grandmothers’ eyes,’ she said, ‘including the creation of demanding babies.’

Pick up any baby magazine and it’s full of the latest gadgets and gizmos that claim they will help your baby learn music, spelling, and make baby smarter and generally better.

And then there’s all the safety research. Bis-phenols in plastic? I have the BPA-free bottles for my baby, says one mom. Well, I use the glass bottles, say another. I have aluminum chemical free non-leaching bottles! says the third.

Local parenting magazines have adverts for all kinds of baby classes for even the youngest babies. When my son was a couple of months old, I called up about one class. The teacher told me that they “have a wonderful learning environment to teach the babies to roll over”.

What, we need classes to teach our babies how to roll over? (My son did manage to learn perfectly well without the class.) There seems to be a new product or service every day to teach your baby to do something that their mom, or older brothers and sisters would have traditionally taught them.

I think I like being a mom in 2008. I like all the options of classes, products and entertainment available to me and my son, I try not to fret when I see a younger child do something my son can’t do yet, and I think I’m well-educated enough about safety issues to make informed choices about how to parent my son. Even though it does make me worry when there’s a new recall or a new danger seemingly every day.

Would you rather have been a mother in simpler times, a generation or two ago?
Or it is better for moms and babies in today’s world with all the new benefits, but all the new stresses?

The first movement milestone your baby will reach is likely to be rolling over. Most babies roll over from their front to their back first, but some do it the other way around.

There is an enormous variation in when babies start rolling over. Some can do it before 2 months, some don’t roll until 6 months or later. It’s all completely normal. My son rolled over once at 8 weeks, then he didn’t bother to do it again until 5 months.

But the first time baby will roll is usually when they are on their changing table, or near the edge of the couch. Are they trying to give us heart attacks? I think so. So as the baby books say, keep a hand on them while they are on something because they will do their best to fall off.

Babies will learn to roll over all by themselves, but you can encourage your baby to start rolling by giving them lots of tummy time, and, if they enjoy it, gently rolling them over so they can experience what it feels like.

Once they can roll, there’s no stopping them! Some babies love rolling so much they roll to move about instead of crawling, which is hysterical to watch.

What’s next? Rolling over is the first step towards moving – once your baby can flip over onto her tummy, she’ll start doing press-ups, and next is crawling. She’ll be so happy about all she’s learning to do – it’s an exciting time for both of you!