Development

One thing I worry about (whenever I decide to take the time to focus on this…) is that our daughter is not getting the ‘right’ type of stimulation because she’s not in daycare. I know, I know! I’m crazy. It’s counterintuitive. Everyone else on the planet is worried about the type of care their child is getting in daycare and I’m worried that maybe we’re not teaching her the things she should know because we’re not trained (for varying amounts of time) paid (possibly as little as minimum wage) caregivers. So every time we go to the pediatrician I ask – what should we be doing to stimulate her? And every time he/she says, at this age, you really just need to talk to her. So I’ll try to do that incessantly for a few days, till I forget to talk through every step of everything I’m doing and start just doing stuff again. Sometimes it’ll hit me like a ton of bricks. I’ll be cooking dinner and I’ll have the baby in the bassinet (yes, she’s too big for it, but it rolls (!) and can therefore easily be pulled into the kitchen!) behind me and she’ll start to cry. I’ll go over and ask what’s wrong and she’ll stop. Then I’ll go back to what I’m doing and the crying starts again. After a few times, I’ll realize that if I just chatter away while working, she’s happy (she has me so well trained! If only I learned faster…)

Now I think the best way for me not to worry about this is to STOP READING anything on child development. You go through and in the end most of the articles seem to suggest that really just letting kids be kids and letting them play is the way to go. They spend a lot of time talking through studies and your child’s ability to determine probabilities / predict outcomes / learn and I think, but I’m not doing what they just did in their study with my child! She’s behind! And then I get to the last paragraph which says that they learn this all through normal play – and I start breathing again, having probably only lost a few minutes from my life so far.