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On parenting a pre-toddler

More and more, when I meet friends at school or in the grocery store, they look at me and ask if I am OK. I think this is because I seem overwhelmed and tired, and the answer to their question is "mostly." The real problem, of course, is that I am parenting a pre-toddler. I think that the main purpose of parents for children from 6 to 14 months is simply to keep them alive long enough to allow them to be civilized---not an easy task.

Parenting a baby who is not sensible enough to understand why he shouldn't put everything in his mouth, why crawling down the stairs head first is a bad idea, or even why he can't be with his mama all the time, is intense. For example, suppose I am carrying him around and put him down to do something (you can do almost everything while holding a baby, but not everything). One of a number of things happens:
  • I hear a "crawl, crawl, crawl, thump, wail!" as he bangs himself into the table, or the floor.
  • I hear just "wail!" as he protests being separated from me.
  • I run over to take away whatever he is putting in his mouth, and he starts wailing.
  • He plays for a minute, then starts wailing and crawls towards me and tries to climb into my arms.
You might notice that none of these scenarios ends happily. We're working on it, but it is definitely hard work for both of us. As long as he is not in danger, I need to decide whether what I am doing is more urgent than picking him up. If he is in danger, I need to put down whatever I was trying to get done and run to help. I am basically on high alert all the time that he is awake, and it is wearing me down.

As I was thinking about this this morning, I realized that my complaints sounded familiar... in fact, I had called my sister when Amanda was this age, with exactly the same overwhelmed feeling. She responded (as I had responded when her child was this age) by reminding me that this was related to development, and it would pass. In fact, Amanda did survive toddlerhood, and I had almost forgotten the pain we went through to get here. I do believe that Luke and I will make it through this stage in his life. But if I seem overwhelmed, it is because I am, at least for the moment.

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Anonymous said…
Thanks for posting in time for my lecture on toddlerhood (had never included a segment on pretoddlerhood before)!

Love,
your sister
(and yes, this will pass)
October 8, 2007 at 4:20 PM
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