I’m a mother. I have three kids.
They aren’t as young as they used to be, but I remember how it was when they were babies and small toddlers.
Raising babies and young children is hard work. It’s one of the most challenging, stressful things a person can do.
These challenges can lead to mental health struggles for parents who aren’t prepared for the work, stress, and pressure involved.
The biggest problem is that babies and young children are totally unpredictable.
They wake up in the middle of the night, either because they’re hungry, need to go to the bathroom, because they’re scared or confused, or for no reason at all.
They don’t know how to communicate, so they can’t tell their caregivers what the problem is. Most of the time, babies and young children don’t know what the problem is.
Imagine you really, really needed to go to the bathroom, but you didn’t recognize that sensation.
You would be uncomfortable. Then you would be in pain.
Then you would become terrified because you didn’t know what was wrong with you. You might think you were dying and couldn’t do anything to stop it.
Babies and young children go through this every time they have to go to the bathroom, every time they get hungry, when they are tired, and every time they have a slight cramp in their stomachs or they’re uncomfortable because their diaper is wet.
Being an adult is so much easier. We recognize all these sensations. We can take steps to relieve them before they become uncomfortable.
This is why raising children is so nerve-wracking. We have to constantly guess at what the problem is.
Sometimes we can’t solve the problem at all and we just have to live with it and listen to the child cry.
I went through this in the first year with my oldest daughter. She had colic. She would get excruciating stomach cramps at the same time every afternoon.
She would cry nonstop for hours. It was absolute hell for me as I’m sure it was for her, too.
I couldn’t do anything to ease her pain. We just had to get through it so we could do it all again the next day. This went on for over a year.
Eventually, I got to the point where I went into it thinking I just wanted to be there for her.
I held her, bounced her up and down, and walked her around so she would know she wasn’t going through it alone. That was all I could do.
Even if we know what the problem is, it can be a nightmare trying to get the kid to take the steps to solve it.
Babies can start crying because they’re tired. They keep crying and crying, which keeps them awake, so they get more tired and more distressed.
The same goes for going to the bathroom. You can watch a little kid squirming and dancing around, crossing their legs, jumping up and down, and maybe even crying.
You can tell the kid, “Go to the bathroom. You’ll feel better.” The kid will sooner have a temper tantrum than listen to you.
The most important lesson I learned from raising kids is that, in order for both the children and the parents to stay sane, you must have routines.
Kids thrive on routines. The more routine their lives are, the more secure they feel. They can relax in the security of knowing what’s happening and when it’s going to happen.
For babies and young children, everything other than neutral is a disaster. The best we can hope for is to keep them at a neutral point as much of the time as possible.
To do this, we need to keep them fed, comfortable, and as rested as possible.
Routine is also critical for parents. Kids are already unpredictable enough as it is.
As parents, we need to remove as much stress and uncertainty from our lives as possible.
We need to know when we are going to make dinner. We need to know when we are going to put the child to bed so we can have some much-needed downtime every evening.
I learned from raising kids that we don’t stop needing routines as we get older.
Older children also thrive on routine. It gives them security and relieves them from making too many decisions.
All of us can get decision fatigue. Making decisions is one of the hardest parts of being an adult.
The more we can relieve ourselves of this responsibility, the easier it gets to navigate all the other unpredictabilities of life.
Routines give us the security to risk and push ourselves the way we need to.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed and stressed out by life, try introducing more routines for yourself. Schedule every minute of your day so you know when, where, and how everything is going to happen.
Plan out when you will wake up in the morning, when you will eat, when you’ll work, when you’ll exercise, and when you’ll do everything else.
This is how you’ll be able to meet all your obligations in the time allotted to you.
You will remove as much uncertainty, doubt, and insecurity from your life as possible.
It will also allow you to accomplish the maximum amount in any given day and achieve the goals you set for yourself.
I hope this helps. God bless everyone reading this.
_______________
All content on the Crimes Against Fiction Blog is © Theo Mann. You are free to distribute and repost this work on condition that you credit the original author.