If you are concerned, don’t just type and be sorry

Share with someone and it won’t be a cause of your worry

There is a lot going on with my son’s school and our upcoming trip to India. I have been planning a few interesting things for you but haven’t been able to sit down and write it down. I thought before I go back to my comfort zone of excuses, I must continue with my writing. This would probably be my last post before I go on my India vacation. I would be at my parent’s place and would spend most of my time by resting, eating, chatting with friends and relatives and thinking of interesting topics for mumways. However, I may not be able to post them and apologies in advance for that.

In my last write up, I talked about our various concerns and anxieties with respect to our kids and the various techniques that we, the parents use to set out boundaries for our little ones. Some of the mums called, some wrote and some met me in person to discuss about their ways of controlling tantrums. Like most of us, the commonly used technique is surfing the net. A simple sentence ‘My 5 year old is not behaving well’ would generate hundreds of pages. All you have to do is match the symptoms that vaguely complement your child and there you go, problem created and solved. To see other people on the same page as you is comforting and that is the reason googling your problems is an easier way out. You feel that you are not being judged. You can put down all the words that are adding to your worries and fact that you are not embarrassed to read about them. I have done it myself and pretty confident that at some point you must have done it! It doesn’t stop at tantrums, the list of comparing and testing on the internet is endless. Here are a few, ‘my baby is not sleeping’, ‘my baby doesn’t sit down in one place’, ‘my kid can’t focus on one thing’, ‘teething worries’, ‘bed wetting’, ‘nappy rashes’, ‘red spots on the back’, ‘thumb sucking’, ‘playing on the ipad’, ‘what to allow them to watch’, what should my 4 year old know’, ‘my kid is still in his nappy’, ‘my child is choking while eating solids’, as I said the list is endless.

I have a friend who had sleepless nights worrying about her child. The reason for her worry was that her child could not focus on one thing. She researched almost everything. She was most certain that there was something significantly wrong with her kid. My friend doubted her own child for being a ‘child’. If you are a first time mum, you learn things by trial and error, you learn things from others and you learn by reading. There is nothing wrong in reading and staying informed and using the positives but the problem is when you start identifying similarities and associate them with your kid. Some of them are self-created problems, hence thought of highlighting the issue. Sometimes out of curiosity or a little concern we start to look up something on the Internet. In a recent interview, the fastest man on earth, Usain Bolt said that his mum used to visit doctors to find out the reason he could not sit at one place. Had Bolt’s mum read all the forums, she would have been a worried mum! Not all that comes up on the net is authentic or the ultimate golden truth.

In one of the articles, it mentions that if your child sleeps very late at night, it means that you have over stimulated your child. If you don’t think too much, one simple reason may be ‘one of those days’. In this situation, I used to get exhausted while trying to get my kid to sleep. Now-a-days, I don’t get angry at all. Of course I am lying. If you are trying to put your kid to sleep for an hour and you find them wide awake, you can’t be a picture of calmness. I can only tell from experience, try not to get exhausted by trying to get your kid to sleep. Instead, come out of the room and if you have any help, pass your kid to your husband or partner or friend. Eat something or get a drink. It needs a lot of energy; make yourself a cup of hot chocolate. That way you have the energy that you need and you are refreshed to start it again. When you are not tired, you can tire your child out! I will not get into the details about taking hours to put your kid to sleep because it can be a whole new chapter. I will concentrate on typing your concerns and making them into serious issues.

I will focus on the fact that it is okay to find out what others are saying about your concerns but without using any logic, just by mere match of similarities, please don’t make them the cause of your sleepless nights. If you read something that bothers you, please don’t spend your entire time worrying by researching on the topic on your own. Instead talk to someone that you know have the knowledge and experience. If there is a problem, we can find a solution. There is no need to create a problem by unnecessary ‘so called research’. Most of the time, children are just being children.

I hope my post take away some worry out of your life and brings a smile on your face.

Much Love

Suranjita

Suranjita Bhagawati

Hello and welcome to 'Mumways'. I am Suranjita and I live in London with my three lovely kids and husband. Mumways is for inspiration - Writing about parenting, well being and lifestyle. I hope you enjoy going through it and thank you for visiting!