‘Me Time’ for Mom

Me Time for Mom

Making Time for YOU is Essential to Good Parenting

By Amy Egan

When we are pregnant, have a new baby, and into the child’s toddlerhood, we  have to put our little one’s needs before our own. We put ourselves on the back burner–a necessary sacrifice we are often happy to make. Then, once our kids are about two years old, they tend to have not only needs, but wants, and lots of them.  It becomes so important around this time to make sure  we are fitting in some ‘me time’ for mom. Taking care of ourselves comes in many forms; getting our nails done, having dates with our spouse (especially important!), nurturing our social relationships and interests as well as having firm boundaries with our kids.

If you wonder what the benefits to our kids are by taking care of ourselves, check out a few I have listed below:

How to Nurture Your Baby’s Curiosity

Nurturing Baby's Curiosity

Interactive Ways To Encourage Baby’s Curiosity With Objects

From birth to 2 months, baby’s tiny hands are usually found clenched in fists. According to this parents.com article, How Baby’s Hand Skill Develops, by 3 to 4 months baby “has developed enough muscle coordination to get a grip on small objects placed in front of him.” Free, wiggly fingers combined with a new curiosity may mean you have a “new” baby on your hands; one that is far more interested in objects now than he was a month ago.

Understanding Toddler Development

Toddler boy reading

How to recognize developmental milestones for Children ages 12 – 36 months

 

Child Development is not a race — there is a wide range of “average” development. Children achieve milestones at different ages depending on their physical, emotional and mental attributes, as well as exposure to different environments, parenting styles and activities. Developmental milestones can be impacted by vision, hearing, general health, medical history, genetics, nutrition and the emotional health of the family.

There are certain developmental milestones, however, that most children reach within a specific time frame. The age when your toddler laughs at your silliness, puts words together to communicate, completes simple puzzles, starts to run and masters other tasks can give you and your pediatrician valuable information regarding how they are developing in relation to other toddlers.

There are three key areas in developmental milestones that your child should be achieving.  These areas are motor development (using their hands, arms and legs in a coordinated manner), cognitive development (thinking, reasoning, using memory and problem solving) and language/social development(communicating and socializing appropriately).

Following you will find a list of developmental milestones.  Under each developmental age, you will find specific milestones for that age. Following the milestones are “red flags” that you should probably bring to the attention of your pediatrician.