5 mistakes I made when I had my first kid that I'll never make again

For the first two years of my daughter’s life, as is common in babies with SIUGR, she was a finicky eater and didn’t grow quickly. We had to take her for weekly and then monthly weigh-ins to make sure she was thriving.

Because my daughter was born so tiny and stayed smaller than other kids, I constantly asked other mothers with kids the same age how tall they were or how much they weighed.

At her well visit right after her second birthday, my daughter’s pediatrician said she wasn’t concerned about her weight anymore, even though she was still tiny.

Today, at age 9, she’s 50 lbs., whip thin, but a total firecracker. My 5-year-old son is the same weight as her, and they’re both right where they should be.

Like many other new parents, I constantly tracked my daughter’s milestones, against online data and other kids. I worried when another baby crawled or walked first, or started stringing together sentences on his first birthday.

Ultimately, my daughter crawled, walked and talked, and then ran, jumped, and starting turning cartwheels.

Babies all develop at their own pace. A good pediatrician, like ours, monitors your child’s growth and development at every visit, and will honestly tell you if there’s a need for testing or early intervention.

I decided to stop obsessively tracking milestones with my second child. Funnily enough, my son, who was born nine weeks premature, did lots of things earlier than my daughter, like saying his first word (bottle) at 9 months old.

On her second birthday, my daughter hightailed it to her potty and promptly dropped numbers one and two in the bowl. My husband and I high-fived, thinking our diapering days were done.

Not so – for another year-and-a-half of my daughter alternated between potty, diaper, and underwear accidents before she was fully trained at age 3 1/2. During that 18 months, I constantly cajoled her to sit on the potty, and spent too much time worrying about it.

With our son, we left the little potty out, but never did a full court press on toilet time. About a month before he started preschool at age 3, we chatted with his pediatrician about the best way to potty train – and as it turns out, kids learn between 18 months and 4 years, a wide swath of time.

Within 10 days, our second little tyke was fully trained and proud of himself.

When you’re a new parent, it’s easy to forget to eat, change your spit-up covered shirt, snag a catnap, hit the shower, or go to the gym. When my daughter napped, instead of snoozing myself, I did laundry or refilled the dishwasher.

I definitely neglected my own self-care, so in my son’s first year, I got my quick naps and workouts in, and even snuck in massages.

Now I’m a pretty well-adjusted mom of two active, energetic, and very happy kids.