Starting dance at a young age meant that I was thrown into a world of highly competitive parents (thankfully not mine) and I bore witness to children succumbing to pressures that were not only unnecessary but also sucked out the fun of dancing.
With the advancement of technology, this competitive spirit starts even while the baby is still in the womb. Some people believe that playing Beethoven or Mozart will stimulate the little fetus, making them smarter or musical geniuses. There are even prenatal education devices in the market that claim that using said devices will lead to babies who are born more responsive, nurse better and are more likely to self soothe.
As a new parent myself, I know how intimidating it can be to live in a time where there is not only too much information but also where things have to be done quickly and not at a leisurely pace anymore. It is completely natural to want the utmost best head start you can give to your little one but when does it become too much?
How heavy was your baby when he was born? Have they started crawling yet? These may seem like perfectly ordinary questions to ask a new parent if the question stops there, but on many occasions I’ve often heard, ‘Why is he smaller than his sister?’ or ‘Oh, nine months still cannot crawl?’ I’ve come to brush all these statements aside and decided to let my babies just be babies.
I remember at around the time when the babies were ‘supposed’ to start rolling over, I couldn’t help but wonder why is it taking so long? Is something wrong? How are other babies walking at nine months? Without much warning my daughter rolled over for the first time and life became harder because I couldn’t leave her lying around unsupervised anymore. My boy only rolled over a month after the girl.
As for crawling, my boy found the easy way of crawling, which was really more like wriggling across the floor military style. My girl, learnt how to do it the proper way, on all fours and only crawled a month after the boy.
Because my twins are far from identical, I feel like I have two different babies of different minds and personalities. So I treat them exactly like that, as two individuals. As they are slowly forming their personalities I know that the healthiest thing I can do for them is just let them be. When visitors come over and say, “Come on babies, start walking quickly,” I just brush it off by saying “Take your time sweetheart, mummy can wait because once you start mummy will never be able to sit down again.”
I believe that there is the right time for everything so when something isn’t happening yet there is no use in forcing the matter. Plus if the babies’ neck or ankles aren’t strong enough I think we are doing them more harm than good. After all, they have all their lives to walk, talk and run, so why not prolong their ‘babyness’ for just a little while more – because we all know how fast time flies.
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January Low, recent mother of twins, takes each day as it comes – because no parenting book could have prepared her for this!
