Children’s milestones are something that every parent worries about especially if their baby is failing to hit them.

Case in point…My son who is an uber-focused father of a toddler was concerned that his 16 month old daughter Aubrey was not yet talking. After all, the paediatrician  told them that if she was not speaking words by age 18 months that she would need speech therapy…

( I believe that the parents would be the ones learning how to make her talk…)

Hogwash, I told him. Don’t worry about it. She’ll learn in her own time I added. After all, she was talking up a storm. It was unintelligible to the rest of us but within her gibberish she had intent, inflection and as talking is highly related to hearing-her ears were in perfect order.

This did not do much to allay his stress about it. A second visit to the paediatrician brought even more doom. “She’s too fat and needs to lose weight.” followed by “She’s off the charts!”

I have to admit that I was a little surprised by this as I can see that she is beautifully chubby but I knew that the little girl never has sugar or any  fattening food. All organic and all natural veggies and meat for her...

When he called to tell me his concerns I asked him to wait on the phone. I ran downstairs to rummage through the box that held my children’s baby books, his included.

Now all my kids were large, and tall for their ages. This son in particular was… let’s  say, a big baby and child, so I knew that my grand -daughter was just following her genetic pathway.

“Umm, at the same age, you were 32 lbs.” And furthermore, your sister at the same age was 2 lbs more than Aubrey. And none of you have any weight issues, so stop worrying. She’s normal for our family. Doctors get caught up in the averages, the medians and the means. They don’t automatically take into account the parents growth history. Besides your dad is a large man and he was off the charts so far at this age , that his mother had to send NASA to find him in the stratosphere!”

Thankfully, this seemed to help quite a bit and he and his wife decided that she wouldn’t be going on a diet. Baby Aubrey would run around a little more and follow her natural growth plan. Phew… but she still wasn’t talking.

” She’ll talk when she’s ready.” I offered.

Even though he was now satisfied that she was like her daddy in height and weight, I knew that he still worried about her and was puzzled at why she wouldn’t say words.

Sometimes, sitting back and letting nature take its course is difficult when you want so badly to intervene. This was a good  lesson for him to take things in stride and to worry about things when its really time to worry about them.

                                         ♡

Three days ago, he sent me  a video of my grand-daughter laughing and you guessed it…saying her own name. Awwwbreee!

You see, mother knows best.♡