My son didn't walk until he was 20 months old. Here's what it taught me about delayed milestones.

I sat at the pediatrician’s office, with my clipboard and questionnaire, facing the dread I’d been anticipating for months. Yes, my child could laugh and clap. Yes, he makes multiple-word sounds, imitates my facial expression and has "stranger danger." But when I got to the question I’d been avoiding, I was confused and frustrated. No, he still couldn’t walk, months after he was “supposed” to be able to.

My fourth son defied the timelines of the previous three sons, not taking his first steps until 20 months. (According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it's typical for a child to walk alone by 18 months.) As an oversized kid approaching his second birthday, he looked out of place plowing through playdates with his army crawl. Onlookers asked me if he was walking yet. Welp — obviously not.

Looking around the playgroup, I felt like I was in a real-life reenactment of the Bluey episode “The Baby Race.” In the show, we see the secret pride parents sometimes feel when their kid hits a milestone before others, the shame when they don’t and how in the end, it really doesn’t matter that much. So why, as a veteran parent who’d seen all the variations in timelines from my kids before, did I care so much now?

“Developmental milestones are important to parents because they are a baby or child’s 'first time' doing something and an indicator that one’s child is developing normally,” says Dr. Jessica Madden, a pediatrician and neonatologist and medical director for Aeroflow Breastpumps. “Plus it’s exciting when a baby hits a milestone, i.e. the first time they smile or laugh. However, becoming too fixated on milestones and constantly comparing your child’s development to others can cause unnecessary stress and anxiety.”

Madden says the main milestones that parents seem to care the most about include: “first times that they smile, start to vocalize, roll over (from front to back and back to front), sit up without support, crawl, pull to stand, say 'mama' and 'dada' and walk." These are all major milestones of infants’ cognitive development and motor skills, she explains, and reaching these milestones helps babies to be able to explore and interact with the world around them.

I seriously thought I was above worrying about a late milestone, having cared very little about my other kids meeting them exactly. But my previous three walkers had all done so by age 1, making this exceptionally abnormal to me. Of course, a deep dive into the darkest part of Google — where parents try to figure out their kid’s mysterious medical conditions — was no help, pointing to everything from autism to cerebral palsy. So, I headed to my pediatrician, armed with arbitrary knowledge I knew was wrong. He reminded me patiently, as he has so many times before, to look at the whole child, not just one milestone. If a kid came in with a fever, for instance, he would be checking for second, third and fourth symptoms to determine if there was a real concern.

Madden agrees. “In pediatrics, we look at the milestones holistically to help to figure out if there is a concern. For example, if I have a patient who is 12 months old and is not yet saying simple words like ‘mama’ or ‘dada,’ I am much more concerned about them if they have missed other milestones related to hearing and speech, such as not responding to noises or their name being called,” she says. “If there is just one missed or delayed milestone I often wait and give it time to develop or emerge. But if a patient has multiple missed or delayed milestones from the same category, such as hearing and speech or gross motor skills, I will refer for necessary testing and specialist evaluations ASAP.”

This to me is the fundamental flaw in milestone tracking. If we aren’t, in fact, that concerned if a child only has one missed milestone, such as not walking at 18 months, why is it presented as a must? It would make more sense if the scary questionnaires asked if the child was missing two or more milestones of the following. But of course, those fateful checkboxes are just meant to alert your pediatrician to any issues at all. “In the majority of cases, however, it’s likely that your pediatrician will want to start with a 'wait and see' approach to give a little more time for a milestone to emerge — in most cases they will,” Madden says.

But of course, when you watch your 20-month-old army crawling — as frustrating as Bluey’s “bum shuffling” might have been for Mum — logic goes out the window.

In the end, our fourth little guy decided that Christmas Day, in a room full of family, was the perfect way to debut his new skill. He stood up, and started marching around like he knew how to walk all the time. He gleefully scrambled on his two newly utilized feet from one family member to the other, falling into their arms and giggling when he made it. It was the perfect Christmas present for this overly anxious mom.

I soon realized how ridiculous my panic had been. I’d called the physical therapists to come help him, but quickly canceled the appointment after his Christmas “miracle.” I realize that even though we didn’t have to worry any more this time, with this child and this milestone, I’d learned an essential lesson for my next baby. In the grand scheme of things, a two-month delay really wasn’t that long. As a parent watching and waiting, it seemed like eternity. I also learned not all kids hit each milestone, or even in the same order.

“It’s not unusual for children to miss or skip milestones. For example, some infants and toddlers never crawl up on all fours, and go straight to walking. Delayed milestones do cause parents to panic a lot of the time,” Madden says. “Because of this, I always recommend speaking with your pediatrician if you have any concerns with your child possibly missing a milestone and/or having delayed milestones.”

I’d like to say I won’t worry if this happens again, but that’s probably not true. Instead, I’ll be armed with more facts on the importance, or lack thereof, of milestones on a chart — and the comments of other playgroup moms.

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