Instincts

I’ve been thinking about this post for a while now, usually in the middle of the night when I am trying to sleep; but, unlike other posts I think about, this topic keeps coming back to me in the same form. 

For any of you women who have ever attended a baby shower, at some point or another you’ve probably been asked to give the mother-to-be some piece of parenting advice.  Before I became a parent, I’d always say things like, snuggle lots, read to your child…things along that nature.  My answers have since changed now that I’m a parent.  Now I’ll say things like, invest in a swaddle blanket, or in parking lots, park next to the carts so you don’t have someone parking too close to you (ie. preventing you to be able to get your kid back in the car seat) and you can grab and return your cart with ease. 

It’s funny, because after all the baby showers I’ve attended when I was asked to do this, I usually ask Mason what he would say.  His best advice is to make a distinct difference between day and night- it helped Theo sleep! 

So, the one thing I kept coming back to, since becoming Theo’s mom, has been to TRUST MY INSTINCTS!  Anytime that I worried or feared about something developmental or concerning Theo, I just had to remind myself that he’s my child and when he’s ready he’d give me a sign, and to not be too pushy.  Things like feeding, and crawling, and talking come to mind. 

As a parent, one of the hardest things, I’ve found was leaving Theo in the care of someone else.  Theo is my world, and I’d be heartbroken if anything bad happened to him, so naturally when leaving him with someone else, I wanted to make sure that person is going to give him wonderful care.  When I went back to teaching a few months after he was born, I had a really hard time taking him to daycare.  I bawled when I went to pick him up the first day, crying in the daycare.  When I decided to stay home the following year I needed a sitter for times when Mason was working, but I had places I had to/wanted to be.  I also started back tutoring and needed some help on those days as well. 

Finding a babysitter is hard.  Few people in the military community want to share their sitter information, because most of the time spouses end up attending the same events and are looking for sitters at the same time.  Anyways, my point in all this, it that we basically had three different teen babysitters at Barksdale and I didn’t trust my instincts with one of them.  I constantly felt uncomfortable with things I’d find after I’d return home.  Without going on and on, I should have also been paying more attention to the cues I was getting from Theo.  He would cry when she came and I left, and he’d cry when I came home.  For awhile I thought this was just normal separation crying, but then I realized, he didn’t do this with the other sitter we regularly had.  In fact, when S came to babysit, he would often forget I was even there, and go off and play with her, rarely cry, and she never gave us a bad report.  Looking back, I feel like I should have gone with my instincts and listened to Theo’s signals more. 

Looking forward, I started using a new teen babysitter here in Minot.  She’s wonderful!  My first impression of her was a good one, and she’s sat for us twice this week, and Theo seems to adore her!  No crying or fussing.  When I came home last night he saw me and then went back into his room to play with her.  I’m so happy that I’ve found someone great to watch Theo, because it makes it easier for me to be away from him, in the sense I’m not out but constantly worrying about what I’ll come home to.

So, TRUST YOUR INSTINCTS.  I think I need a big sign in my house saying that, or something that will remind me of this when I constantly worry about things.