Toilet training is my favourite game-changer milestone. I still get a thrill when I think about The Day the Diaper Genie Left the Building. This stage was one of the tougher (wetter and smellier) ones to get through, taking about six months longer than the three-day weekend I envisioned. But the end result was well worth it: no more diapers.
Milestones are goalposts that mark your child?s increasing independence, says Sharon Smile, a developmental paediatrician at Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital in Toronto. Those benchmarks never stop coming. ?You pass one goalpost and there?s another and another,? says Smile.
It?s common to expect your kid to meet those goals when the parenting books tell you they should, and it?s exciting, too, but don?t get too caught up on timelines. ?Kids are always in a state of development,? says Kathryn Keely, division chief of community paediatrics at The Children?s Hospital of Eastern Ontario in Ottawa. Resist the urge to push your kid to meet milestones on a pre-set schedule. ?A child feels the pressure and will balk at that activity,? says Keely. Instead, Keely tells parents to look for indications that a child is moving toward the next developmental stage rather than determine it?s time they do it.
Here are five milestones and the signs that suggest your little one may be ready to start tackling them.
Photo: Getty Images
1. Starting solids
Typical timeline: Six months old
Both the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Canadian P...