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Have you ever had a moment where you looked at your baby, or your way of parenting, and just felt like your baby wasn’t smart enough or you were inadequate? We’ve all been there.

Aimee recently posted about social media being one of the ways in which we can feel so useless, and I have to agree! On social media, you only see the perfect side of parenting. You only see the milestones and the happiness, you don’t see the flukes, one-offs and huge amount of tears that are inevitable. This journey is incredibly emotional. Everyone cries at some point, you just don’t see it.

Nevertheless there’s this competitive side to parenting now – whose baby starts speaking/crawling/walking the quickest? Who are the best mum and dad? Whose house looks cleanest and tidiest in the background of all of those beautiful baby pics? Definitely not mine, I promise!

A picture of my baby girl, complete with laundry drying in the background

And it’s not just parents who are guilty of doing this – I once went to a baby group that I had been to a few weeks on the trot, but this time there were two NHS trainee Health Visitors observing the group. My daughter has always been raring to go and she was pretty quick to do everything, but I would never have dreamt of saying what one of those ladies said next:

“Does it make you worry when you see babies the same age as yours doing so much more?”

Yep, I’m serious. She said that to the woman sitting next to me.

If that had been me, I would have crumbled. A medical professional passing comment like that? They should know better, and thankfully, the mum next to me had the perfect answer. She said “No, all babies develop differently and take different amounts of time to do things”.

I wanted to give her a high five, I felt so pleased that she’d shut down that conversation and wouldn’t pay any attention to that competitive style of parenting. And that advice is so true! Although Olivia was always quick at getting on her feet and charging about, it took her a little while to start saying words other than mummy and daddy, and in the last few months, I can’t believe how much the little chatterbox’s speech has come on.

I got the idea from Harriet, who keeps a note on her phone of all the words Florence says and what order they came in, to write a letter to Olivia on my personal blog listing all of the words she can say. To my amazement, there are tons! It’s really quite fascinating to see them all written down like that, and if you had any doubts about your baby not progressing as quickly as others, I would urge you to try it.

Try writing down all the things baby can do or say, and when you see it there in black (or whatever other colour pen you use) and white, it will make you realise that they are progressing in their own little way. As the mum at the baby group said; they all take time to do things and they all develop differently.

No two babies are the same, so comparing them and their abilities is bad for everyone. You don’t need to feel insecure and you definitely don’t need to feel like everyone is in competition.

We are all in this parenting malarkey together.