Milestones

Parenting is hard. I am 9 months in and still feel like I have no idea what I am doing. I question myself daily. Sometimes, the cause of my frustration is a lack of sleep and then Illyana is a goofball when I just want to get things done (diaper changes are the major cause of this - I want to clean her up and she wants to roll around and play). But other times, I think it is wondering if she is developing normally and if she's not, is it because of something I am doing or not doing.

Illyana sees a whack of professionals, including a pediatrician, physiotherapist, the infant development program, and is on the client list for the speech and language pathologist and the occupational therapist although she has, thankfully, not really required their services yet. She sees all of these people because she had a feeding issue at 3 months, which involved a hospitalization while they figured out exactly what was going on. We learned a lot in that visit and the follow ups which happened. It was a small thing that required more adjustments on my end than anything.

I appreciate all the help these professionals have given us but I sometimes think that they make things harder on me.

Illyana is slightly behind on her development. I don't think it is anything to worry about. She's so smart and active. She's just Illyana. I also know that all babies develop differently and at their own pace. Milestones and development trackers drive me crazy for this reason.

Every time we get vaccinations there is a checklist. At 2 months, she missed one of six items. At 4 months she missed a little more. At 6 months even more. At six months, we also completed the ages and stages questionnaire and Illyana only was low on her gross motor development which was expected with her feeding issues. But looking at the vaccination questionnaire, I couldn't help but feel like we were doing soemthing wrong.

Earlier this week, we did the 9 month questionnaire. Illyana was 8 months, 3 weeks. We were not doing well on it. I said "no" to a lot of questions before it was suggested we do the 8 month test. We did much better on that scale but had two new areas come up that Illyana is "behind" on.

The thing is, if we didn't have all these professionals around, we would still think our baby is the perfect little girl she is. Instead, I look at these checklists and wonder what I am doing wrong. Should I be doing more with her? Should I be teaching her things I am not? I follow her lead, I play with her. I wonder if there is something "wrong" with her.

I know in my heart that she is just Illyana and I see her as the perfect little girl she is. I see a goofball with a big personality. I see a strong willed little girl who will take the world by storm. I see a little girl, determined to army crawl as fast as she can around the whole house. And I know she is perfect. But she falls into the "needs monitoring" category in two of five or six categories, and in new categories from where she has previously been "behind".

I also struggle with the professionals giving me suggestions on how to be with her, how to help her. Sometimes it feels like they are saying why is she doing this? What are you doing to make her like this? Which is maybe what I want to hear since I often feel like I am failing her anyways.... its hard to have professionals involved. It's hard to see the checklist saying she's behind and then hear (even if only internally) that it is something you are doing.

I know these questions have been asked since the beginning of time and I know that anyone reading this will say that Illyana is fine, I'm doing a great job and all that. And I know all those things. But when a child is not meeting milestones for any reason, it becomes extra hard to smile. Illyana is days away from her 9 month birthday and there are things on the 3-6 month checklist that I cannot say she does. I don't know how to make it better for her.

Sometimes, I want to walk away from the professionals so that I can just enjoy my perfect baby girl but I know that they are important in case we reach more critical levels. I would rather her be seen and monitored, and early intervention applied if needed than not be seen, or be on waitlist for years. It's just so hard, seeing her not meeting the milestones on a piece of paper.

Parenting is hard. I feel like a failure but she looks at me with such love. I see the milestone checklists and we work on the things we are missing. But she is perfect, in every way and I wouldn't change her for anything.