First Words

Ryn,

In relation to the comparisons between little cousins.........my best advice is say nothing and play it down.

I have 3 SILS, all with children/babies the same age as mine, and it is a potential mine-field I reckon.........Granny and grandparents can be a shocker too, without meaning to be.

Bear this in mind.......if a baby/child excels at something or reaches a milestone really early, chances are they will be later to achieve in other areas.........for example, I got frantic that Olivia wasn't walking, as her little cousin (who is the exact same age) was. By the time Olivia was 20 months she FINALLY walked. Her cousin had been walking for practically a year by then! In between times though, Olivia was having full on conversations, where her little cousin was still on one word vocab. See what I mean?

Luckily my SIL and I are both relaxed and not competitive, and are v.close friends, but I am still very cautious just the same..........

Yeah i agree with the others you have to be very careful comparing children with family members can cause unwanted tension.. I know it did with my cousin and i... I have children the same age doing completely different things at work and other children 6 mths apart doing the same thing but you will always see one is has better gross motor skills then the other and the other has better language, cognitive skills...

Ryn...
Maybe your DS is saying 'words'.... but then, he may not walk until he's 2yo!!! Okay, bit of an exageration; but he may be a really late developer in other aspects that your niece will surpass him.

So enjoy his little words. But don't dwell on them.

My son is being bought up in a bi-lingual home. I speak English & my husband speaks Hebrew. A paediatric doctor & the local hospital both said that they bi-lingual kids tend to talk later - but when they do talk, they are more advanced at school... so I was relieved to hear that. My DS turns 1 soon, and he just says the basic words (hebrew/english)... but he's walking, and doing a few other 'advanced' things. I just don't push him to do anything. he loves reading books, and that's all I encourage him to do.

Apparently i didn't say anything until i was way past 2 then i just didn't shut up... ever! or so my mum like to say. Oscar said 'hello' back to us at about 4 months old and we just about fainted, must have been a one off fluke though as he didn't say it again until past 1. His first word was fish (We spent alot of time in the Reef HQ Aqaurium as we lived in Townsville where it was bloody hot and it was airconditioned!). Will is just about saying hello now but nothing else.

I agree with PP have said Ryn - you son sounds gorgeous - must be the name too. Yes, we all like to think our precious babies are going to be a genius and about 1% will be .By your description he could well be.I second Rae's good advice ...

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Don't wish these early days away and enjoy all the beautiful baby stuff - DS is gonna grow up too damn fast as it is.

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These precious days you can't ever get back so enjoy his babyhood.Let him show your relatives when he is ready he can talk.

My neice is G & T - her first sentence at about 1 - I noticed at a family dinner was "sit down Aunty T" - to my sister lol.

If you think comparing your Ds to his niece is a competition to be won -please don't do it in front of the children.

It is harder here in the same house with twins each has their own special qualities and they can do different things - one pulled himself up on furniture first and has been crawling /sitting /crawling for ages. The other sat alone first , but still can't sit to go from crawling position well,today he started standing up on furniture/toys by himself.

However, he has better fine motor development and cognitive skills. ( I only know this because we are particpating in a developmental study at Children's hospital by a university grad and they have both been assessed @5mths & 9 months so far and will be at intervals up to age 7). No genius's here yet but I hoping one takes after me ;)

At the end of the day in the playground noone is going to keep score on who did what first but they will want to play with friendly non competitive children.

To be honest I am not writing down things so I can't compare them andthere is no record "OH I did that first ... so I am better than you " I keep a mental record and we all know how accurate that is.

We hope will never compare them negatively but awknowledge each has their own unique capabilities and encourage them to their fullest potential gently.

We won't be encouraging our relatives to do it either. My cousin has a daughter,Holly a month or so younger but we aren't comparing ... though my aunty (Holly's grandmother) asks me what they are doing and comments ... Holly is doing this and that ...just as conversation though.

Oooh, I've come over wrong... the ILs were even comparing pregnancies wth what "should" be happening (SiL's having been the benchmark) so of course I know what niece did as the norm to what DS should be doing. Which frustrates me, but is why I don't want to say anything and I certainly don't treat DS as a performing monkey! And yes, it is a competition with the ILs, they also don't ask how DS is until they've told me what Niece has been doing so I can't avoid that! But ~I will endeavour to wipe that from my memory, ypu're right, I'm getting way too uptight about it. I also know that unless asked, only my parents want to hear a brag and make sure to praise other mums' brags without saying DS has done that for ages.

(BTW, I ask DS to say byebye, thank you, pardon... as well as hello, it's more to teach him social manners, not to show off. And DS is only normal in his fine motor control, just talking and gross motor control that are super. I'm also not proud of the fact that of all his baby friends he has the loudest burps. I'm also well aware I adore my son too much and he's my first... but I'd be worried if I didn't take notice of his babbling or other things he does whilst at play. Laugh at me all you want, so long as you know DS is adored!)

OMGosh having worked as a teacher for years can I say I have never come across such a young baby that is able to talk!
I have come across PLENTY of 'my child is sooo smart' type Mummas though!!!

Lea - yes in the over ten years I worked as I nurse in children's ward I never heard any baby talk that early.Though plenty could spit,hit, pinch and kick early.

Even many older ones too I could never understand but their mothers could always tell what their children wanted.That is what is special about being a mummy being in tune with your own children and communicating with them.

Ryn, We know how much you adore your DS.It shows clearly. It is so sweet.

I agree it is important to take notice of all they things they do and their babbling and of course teach them manners. I saw plenty of kids who mothers didn't care less and it showed. It's impressive starting this early.

I believe children learn by what they live ... if we have exceptional manners they are bound to copy us.

thankyou for sharing with us.

Niass - yes it is so cute when my 10month old J says mmmm,mmmm - yum mum with every spoonful of solids we give him.He makes us laugh ...all the way to the end of the meal -then he cries because we say it's all gone.

Niass, DS uses "um-gah" (hunger) when he's hungry... this is more me searching for a word then him using it though. It's useful to know what he is "talking" about though!

As for teaching manners (including showing him manners for the big table where Mummy eats), prayers at bedtime et cetera, I thought well, when do you start? Isn't it best to start from day one, so it becomes second nature, rather than start at say the first/second birthday when the child has no idea what you're telling them to do, or later when they resent new things being added to a routine. (Not a comparison, but because BiL and SiL don't do this, PiL undermine my efforts constantly and just say that he should be allowed to "get away" with whatever he wants or encourage him when he turns his head and cries/screams in my ear rather than me say "that's not what we do" as I calm him - then they say that Niece isn't expected to do this... aaaagh! They aren't the same! But this is why I fret too much about comparisons.)

Ryn i know how you feel :(

Last time i was at XMIL's her and XSIL were going on and on about how mean i am because Esme doesn't get sweets or chocolate (she's ONE!? WTF?). I have let her taste chocolate on her birthday (it was her birthday cake) and a few crumbs when i've been eating it, but not given her a piece of it to eat iykwim. Of course they were sneaking her junk food all day and she was totally wired, a wee demon all evening. Poor kid, she didn't know what was wrong with her. All of my choices have been compared unfavourably to SIL's - homebirth, breastfeeding, SAHMothering, gentle parenting choices, you name it. I just calmly state the facts "i prefer Esme not to have chocolate" and don't bother trying to reason. THey were talking with glee (IMO) about smacking last time i saw them and i just sat totally silent and thought "if either of you lay one finger on my child i will kill you".

I am trying to teach esme manners by everytime she wants something i say "Can i have the .... please?" and then giving it to her and saying "Thankyou!". SHe's just starting to say "ah-oo" when she gets things. I've been doing it since day one....more grim looks from MIL "I'm hungry, may i eat please?" then "thankyou" as i latched her on. Of course they think cuddling your child to be some sort of abuse and they expect niece #1 to have good manners even though they NEVER say please or thankyou themselves. Sorry. My vent has hijacked you... :(

Hana

Hana

I know I compare all the time with our similar aged cousins :redface: BUT, I never make it obvious, I just keep it to myself ;) I think it kinda comes naturally, especially if you are a competitive person by nature. But I am well aware of the fact that although Emma excels in some ways, her little cousins 'beat' her in others......I just choose to notice the ones she's better at LMAO!!

We all think our kids are the best, and that's exactly what parents should think!

But I do agree with some of the others, don't let the competitiveness get in the way of just enjoying the moment. Don't try to hard or analyse too much...

:) I love my DS - last night, he did a big sneeze after his bath. I said "Bless you" and he responded with "thag-ou" - nothing else, no other babble, just a little thank you! I know that this has to be a coincidence, but it was so cute I thought I just had to do a quick brag about it (and to people who know I'm already quite insane thinking my son is talking already).

Hana, I hear you about comparisons with mothering - my bump was never as big (SiL is a foot shorter than me), now DS is out I don't control cry, I aren't going back to work ASAP, I don't put DS in front of the TV and leave him there (the TV is rarely on while we play, sometimes we watch something but I do a commentary all the way through it), I will BF in front of people and don't want to use formula or introduce solids early... and that's just so far! They're quite insidious in their disapproval, they never say anything directly to me, they usually tell DS the opposite of what I do or they keep asking DH to go round to their house to help them on a weekend - DH is sick of this, he spent two hours on their computer only to find out that his Dad had a letter from the internet people asking for his new card details as the old one had expired, so it didn't need "fixing" at all! But in those 2 hours FiL had been making a lot of nasty, upsetting comments - so much so that DH doesn't want to see his parents again for a long time.

Anyway, they are good in-laws in other ways, I will just keep looking at the good things they do (like buying the new pram and car seat for DS).

I am convinced that DS is trying to talk, he has "hello", "Mummy" (or Mumm-EH!, as he says it), "hunger", "love you" and now maybe "thank you" (if he keeps using it). I do know this is mostly me making a lot up, but I do think it is also him trying to respond to me correctly... we'll know soon enough, I suppose! Then I'll be posting asking how to shut him up LOL.

Responding to your baby is never a bad thing Ryn..thats how they learn and their little gurgles are just gorgeous..i never tire of it.

Jo

I think that maybe alot of bubbas 'talk' earlier than we give them credit for. I realised this morning that I have really been under-estimating my little Imran. Yesterday I would have said that Imran knows a few words, Mama, Deeda, Dora (his brother loves Dora!!), banana, juice (generic word for all drinks in our house at the moment lol) but today I think he knows lots more and the problem is that I just don't speak baby well enough.
When DH was going to work this morning he was looking for his phone which Imran had hidden in an inbuilt. (I was looking straight at the phone but because I'm not talking to DH I wasn't going to tell him where it was.) DH asked Yasin if he had seen his phone, Imran immediately started going gaaghh, gagh and staggered over to the cupboard and pointed at the phone. He tried the gaagh, agg, pointy approach for a bit longer and that didn't work. Then he walked over to DH who was still busy asking Yasin about the phone and pointed at DH and then walked back towards the cupboard and pointed some more. Then he went and sat next to it and said aaggh, deeda, ggagaga, deeda and did some more pointing. I tried to help DH out at this point by dropping a hint and telling Imran how clever he was but DH still didn't get it. Imran tried the walk to Deeda and pointing thing again and then went and sat next to the phone again and pointed and babbled while I told him how good he was at which point DH finally got it.
Imran was trying to communicate for about 5 minutes and it just went totally under the radar. He understood what DH was looking for and tried to tell him where it was at least 3 differant ways. It makes me wonder how often I've missed other attempts to communicate. From now on I'll be trying harder to descipher Imran's babbling because it just might help me be more efficient lol.
At the moment I'm thinking that lots of children are probably talking earlier than we think - it's just that thier adults aren't tuned in properly.