As parents, especially first timers, we all religiously check up on the so-called milestone charts and constantly visit our Pediatricians who advise us on our children’s natural reflexes, and sometimes go into fits of anxiety when thinking our precious angels are lagging behind.

However, let me tell you from personal experience there are more important reflexes and milestones that seem to go unnoticed, but we as parents need to be warned about them and warn future parents for their own personal protection and continual sanity.

Reflexes

It is a natural reflex for infants to wee on you or even better on both you and your partner, this reflex does lessen over time, but will take up to 4 years to be completely abandoned.

The "wee in the bath then drink the water" reflex is another undocumented reflex and may seem revolting to new parents until they have become well engrossed in all the "not so nice aspect" of parenthood. However, once this no longer seems disgusting you are more then ready to advance to the next level, the "pooh in the bath and watch mom fish it out" reflex. I personally have experienced this once and can happily report that soft squishy’s are lucky melted by HOT HOT water, just aim the shower head in the appropriate direction and watch that sucker disintegrate.

The "pull hair" reflex, - which goes hand in hand with the "grasping" reflex. This develops early on in your infant, but remains for many years. The longer the hair, the more prone your infant will be to develop this reflex. This reflex also goes hand in hand with the "I’m sorry" reflex which develops in all parents, when your child tries to scalp any human being with his reach. Get use to saying "I’m sorry", practice it in the mirror if need be to get the appropriate facial expression, trust me these words will be repeated many many times during your child’s growth into adulthood.

Quite often we refer to the "sucking reflex" of new borns, but after 3 months, another reflex develops, this is called the "gagging" reflex. You should see it in practice, try feed your child anything that might be healthy, and suddenly she starts gagging, some infants have been known to make themselves physically ill using this reflex. If successful, they employ "projectile vomiting" (which by the way would make the producers of "The Exorcist" very proud) and one would be amazed by the range and accuracy our little tykes manage.

The "smack in the face" reflex suddenly appears from about 6 months of age. It can be rather painful, but do not fear, it is a reflex, not a deliberate action. In later months this reflex will be accompanied by an endearing "I’m sorry". Don’t believe them, they have not learnt a lesson and will attempt to batter you again – learn to duck.

Especially for boys there is the "winky pulling" reflex, I am not going to elaborate on this, as I am sure that you get the idea. A note for those who worry, your son’s winky is very hardy and no matter what size and shape they manage to stretch it to, it will return to normal, in due course.

Teething brings on a few new reflexes, which include the bite mom’s fingers off, chew the dogs tail, and the most painful, the nipple bite. There is little that one can do to avoid this unless you are planning on fitting your toddler with dentures later on in life, then do yourself a favour and remove all his teeth now.

Next we get to milestones

Each child develops at his or her own pace, so do not panic if a milestone has yet to be reached, your child will develop it sooner rather than later.

The "unbuckle myself in the car seat" milestone is probably the most annoying. Between the age of 9 months and 24 months, a child will suddenly learn how to undo the car seatbelt, and before you know it, will be sitting on the passenger seat staring at you angelically, if not trying to crawl onto your lap to help drive the car or honk the horn.

The "get cute quick" milestone is probably the earliest to develop and I feel that this might be considered as a reflex as well. Have you ever noticed that the minute your child does something knowingly naughty, they get cute, it does preserve their bottoms somewhat, but nonetheless face it, it is here to stay.

A child from about 9 months develops the "answer anything" milestone, which lasts until at least 16 years of age. What this entails is that a bird will sing, and off she will toddle to answer the cup, kettle, car, iron, and mom’s knickers, anything nearby will suffice.

The "pull the nappy off" milestone is not something that you actually want to experience, and can be avoided as long as you watch your child 24/7. This involves your child learning exactly how a nappy is to be pulled off, and how to smear the contents on the white walls. It generally develops from about 1 year of age, and I feel that this is probably because the nappy content is more fun to play with than in a new born

The "throw food on the floor" milestone is more present on cleaner floor surfaces. It also goes with the "hide food in the couch" (or nappy), "share food with animals’ and "spit food out when tummy is full" milestones, developing around 9 months and sadly lasting well into the teen years.

The "scale anything higher then me" milestone is a really trying milestone and requires that you watch you child 24/7. At this stage he suddenly discovers he is the reincarnation of Sir Edmund Hillary and that every piece of furniture is Mount Everest. It is most annoying when one is trying to go to the loo and has to stop half way in the middle to rescue "Sir Edmund" from a window sill where he is bellowing "help you". When this milestone is eventually over I will let you all know.

One of the most difficult milestones that is achieved and stays around for many years, is the "Embarrass Mom by repeating exactly what was said". I am pleased to say that as of yet I personally have yet to reach this milestone (because my son does not talk), but it is the one I dread most of all. I can just imagine what he is going to say to my parents about my bedroom antics, and what am I going to do when he pulls out the handcuffs

Hard on the heels of this milestone comes the "I never shut up" milestone, where mommy will have to become super intelligent and answer all the "why’s", "where’s" and every other form of babble question that comes out of your child’s mouth. Learn to preempt all forms of "where" people are by saying they are A) in the day, at working to buy things for baby and B) at night everyone and everything is sleeping. After a month of this milestone you wish baby would regress to forms of communication that were easier to deal with. This milestone is here to stay, so I advise both hitting the encyclopedias and developing a never-ending store of patience or employing selective hearing.