Baby training, month 10

At 10 month, DD continually scrambled out of sight. Nothing made her happier than discovering hidden pots and pans inside drawlers, unloading clean knives and forks from the dishwasher, taking a peek inside the mysterious refrigerator, tearing Daddy’s favorite painting which used to be out of her reach, or dropping a spoon from the highchair over and over again. And if I was not stifling the urge to say “no!”, I would find myself stuck in her tossing or dropping game. Yes, at this age, it looked more like DD was training me rather than the opposite way.

1. Keep conversations going: Interestingly, neither M nor I think having a conversation with baby sounds silly. We both agree that treating DD as an intelligent individual and talk with her using adult language is a great way to encourage her language skills.

We name the objects around her, such as table, chair, radio, book, ball, and etc, to help her learn the names of things. We also demonstrate actions that go with words, for instance, saying “bye-bye” and waving or saying “welcome” and clapping hands, so she learns to identify key words and phrases. In addition, I pointed myself and say “mama” when she’s looking at me and told her “dada is back” when Daddy walked into the room. We tried to do all these talking bilingually, both in English and Chinese.

2. Who let that baby out? Of course, it was me. When I saw DD trying to escape the play yard again and again, I knew it was time to let her out of that confined safe space and explore her surroundings by herself. Suddenly, she entered the land of bumps and falls.

Although her falling and crying made my heart skip a beat or two, I understood that these were an inevitable part of childhood: she had to learn the danger and unknown of this world and learn how to deal with it by herself. Therefore, I restrained my innate desire of overprotection and let her crawl freely in the kitchen and touched the cabinet, opened the cabinet door and drawls, and take the pats and pans out. I sat right beside her and keep an eye on her just in case.

3. Tolerate/encourage independence growing: Crawling makes changes dramatically on DD, both physically and mentally. She was no longer a helpless infant who couldn’t do anything without me. Her growing independence was becoming more and more apparent.

Whenever she found something enticing, she would crawl toward it to better discover what it was. She also demonstrated likes and dislikes towards things she used to accept as a fact, for instance, she would flip over and crawled away when I put her down onto the changing table intending to change her diaper. She began to reject the food she didn’t like and refused to do things she didn’t want to.

Meanwhile, she began to actively do things herself. She would purposely drop a lotion bottle from the changing table, or a spoon from the highchair, over and over again for me to pick up. She also would grip a cup, drink from it independently and then toss it away. And I became the adaptor of her actions, for example, keeping picking up things of her dropping game or start ducking during her tossing game.

Generally, I tolerated, and sometimes even encouraged, her growing independence, as long as she didn’t seriously hurt herself or the pretty heavy lotion bottle missed my toes.

4. Discipline consistently: Now DD began to understand simple instructions, but her desire to explore was stronger than her desire to listen to my warnings, so it’s up to me to protect and teach her, and say “no”.

M told me I had to remain consistent in setting certain boundaries. Rules, once set up, shouldn’t be compromised just because I am too tired or lose patience. I have to keep my discipline consistent if I want her to have important distinctions, like right from wrong and safe from unsafe. I am still working on it.