Following your Intuition when it might take awhile to see the Results

My Little Explorer!

I love my motherly intuition and I love that I have learned to use it and respect it over the past two years, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t still times that I question it or worry whether or not I am interpreting it correctly.  I am sure I am not alone in this worry, as Mom’s we want what is best for our kids but it also means having patience as we watch them grow and develop. (I should tell you now that Patience is not my strong suit!)

The two things that I struggle with are E’s sleeping and E’s independence. Overall I feel confident about the path we are choosing, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t times that I question our path or that we don’t make little tweaks and changes along the way. As I have wrote about in a prior post E is what I like to call my cautious child. At 2 he has Never crawled out of his crib, 90% of the time waits for me to cross the street, rarely runs away, usually waits for a hand to hold or even arms to carry him before he walks down stairs. E is going to make sure EVERYthing is safe before he ventures out, while for the most part I am grateful that we have yet to visit the ER due to an attempt at jumping off the table his caution for things has also caused his Dad and I to question our parenting.

If we take E out anywhere, 98% of the time he wants to be carried as soon as we walk out the front door, or as soon as we get out of the car at our destination. He has strong reservations about what might be lurking around the corner. Often times after a few minutes of carrying him we can coax him into getting down and exploring his surroundings, sometimes it takes longer, but usually he eventually warms up to the space we are in and will get down and explore. We have tried telling him that we can’t pick him up or encouraging him to walk on his own right away which occasionally works but more often than not it just makes him more upset and more bothered by the situation he is in. My motherly instinct tells me to encourage him to walk right away on his own, but if I can tell that he is quickly agitated to pick him up (not push him into a situation), try and make him comfortable and then try again in a few minutes to set him down. For the most part this has been working but depending on the situation it can take anywhere from 2-3 minutes to 20 minutes to get him to walk on his own. There are days that I worry that I am coddling him or stifling his independence but for the most part I feel that I am respecting his learning curve and his situation, I am trying to parent to his specific needs. Unfortunately it may be years before I know if this was the right path. Is he going to gain the confidence and independence he needs to be able to go somewhere on his own without me, I am pretty sure the answer is yes but I hate those days that I question.

The discussion of sleep will be Part 2. Stay tuned.