Ever since Paighton was born I have been her provider, care taker, food source and all the above. I’ve changed her, feed her every 2 hours. Made sure her ouchies felt better and took her everywhere she wanted to go. Life as I knew it was changed forever and the way I parented was completely different. So I decided let me give some future advice!

1. Give them independence.

Nothing is worst than having the ability to do something you never could do before and having someone take it away from you. As a parent I completely understand where your coming from. These are our babies!

It feels like just yesterday I was sitting around just waiting for her to make a new movement. Fast forward to present time and I’m watching her walk around the house getting into everything. I love it!!!! But I realized that the process of growing up requires me to have to let go. To give her independence to explore, fall, get into things because it’s all part of growing up. Will I ever stop being a helicopter parent?! Of course not! I’ll be their with her every step of the way, but I will learn to let her take her steps. Because independence is key to growing up.

2. Accept they are growing up.

This is a hard one for most parents, I think it’s safe to say that my mom still has a hard time with it too. But she’s definitely realized it much more since I had Paighton.

Parents y’all have to realize that the baby stage goes by so fast only to make you want more kids. I feel as if the tantrum stage is due to our own actions. We’re standing in the way of letting our children reach new milestones. Letting them explore who they are and what they can become. My dad once told me that when I was 10 years old, he started to talk to me like an adult. Reason being is because when I started to grow up my dad didn’t want to have to transition from the baby phase to a grown up phase to late. I believe it helped me in the long run.

3. Embrace the screaming!

I know what your thinking dear God no we don’t want our children screaming at all! Well if you noticed yet children will scream whether we want them to or not. We aren’t in control over the way they function. Instead we have to teach them that screaming is only used mwhen you sing a good song in the car or for cheering on mom when she turns that last barrels and she’s hauling home. (Barrel racing)

I’ve personally have experienced the scream session in the grocery store. Paighton wanted a box of cereal, to her understanding it wasn’t going her way. So what did she do ?? The only logical thing she knows how to do was to scream! Everyone thinks that when their child starts to scream they are “being bad” but let’s not forget for a second that for as long as they have been in the world when ever they would cry their needs were met. They can’t Decipher whether a need is a need or a want. All she knows is that, that box of cereal is a “need” because she wants it and since we aren’t giving it to her she has to scream. Babies at this age in life are learning to be independence but they are still dependent on us in a lot of ways they have no idea about. So embrace the screaming, turn it into something positive instead of walking away from them or getting embarrassed in public. This is your child who is learning to become completely dependent on themselves.

Finally:

This transition stage for any parent can be tiring and at times you have no idea what your doing. My brother-in-law always likes to tell me

“Carm your so good at pretending”

and he’s 100 percent right! I have no idea what I’m doing. Not because of my age but because no one at any age knows what they are doing when it comes to raising a child. Everyone just goes with the motions and try’s to figure out what is best for them. My advice may not work for you. Neither may it work for me in five months from now. Giving and receiving advice is all apart of the motherhood journey, Which I am so here for.