Pediatrician shares the 'secret milestones' that parents might not have heard of

Parents often worry whether their kids are reaching all their developmental milestones at the right age. Whether they have started talking at the right age or why they suddenly do things that seem strange. To shed some light on the matter, TikTok user and pediatrician, Dr. Sami, explains in a video several "secret milestones" children have at a certain age that could be very helpful for parents.

"These are some milestones that you are not gonna see online, or you are not gonna see reported, but they do happen, so let's go through them," Dr. Sami says in the video. "If you have a newborn, one of the secret milestones is they hiccup a lot. Totally normal. The other thing is they scream pretty murder for everything, if they are hungry, they are wet or they are bored. It was always just like that one setting, I'm dying. Which makes it really hard obviously."

She then goes on to talk about what milestones a child reaches when they are four months old. "Okay, 4 months is the time they are super cute and they are smiling all the time. But they also like to grab your hair and won't let go. And you are literally bald because of it. They pull all your hair out," says Dr. Sami. "Between six and nine months, they start to do weird things and you are like, 'Is that normal?' They shake their head all the time, or they stick their tongue out a little bit. Totally normal. Milestone."

However, she also makes it clear that all children don't follow these milestones. Dr. Sami says in the video, "Because you know how milestones work, they kind of go and develop at their own rate and some of them skip over milestones. That's okay. If your kids not doing it."

She also speaks about temper tantrums and when it starts. "A lot of people think that temper tantrums start when they are two and above. Honestly, they start when they are between 12 and 15 months old. That's a milestone," says Dr. Sami. "Toddlers picky eaters are totally a milestone. A selfish, unreasonable, terrorist, totally normal for a toddler. Also, somewhere between the age of 15 to 18 months, they totally try to kill themselves, that's totally a milestone - 'let's see what happens if I jump off the couch' - fun times."

"At the age of around 9 to 11, I would say it's very normal for them to feel some sort of anxiety. But I do recommend when that happens you talk to your pediatrician about it. If you don't, if you don't catch it early, it can kind of get away from you," says the doctor. "But if you just start hearing your 9, 10, 11 years old start talking about not wanting to die and mortality, things like that its totally normal."

She concludes the video by saying: "It's totally also normal for teenagers to have different circadian rhythms, so they want to stay up later at night and wake up later in the day. But because their school system does not allow that they are tired all the time. Milestone."

The video garnered over 2.4 million views and 358k likes on TikTok. People on social media found the information very helpful. @thatmomcrazymom commented, "As a developmental therapist I love this! It’s so helpful when we have peds like you to guide parents!" @.shadykatie wrote, "My daughter is 4 months and the death grip she gets on her dad's beard is hilarious." @lunarlove131 pointed out, "Omg the tantrum part my 18m old started having tantrums a few months ago and I always thought why you're not 2 yet thank you for sharing this." @smudgeneverbeauty expressed, "This was so so good! Four kids here, all different but loved hearing these!" @allyxcall3.0 commented, "I am so happy that you included older children. I feel like a lot of these tips and tricks stop once the child reaches preschool age."