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A father's life is busy. I admit that a mother's life is even busier. However, we share many moments with our two daughters, so I am there during the worst and good times. Right now, one of them is turning 6 years old next month while the other just completed 2 years old last January.
When we have our second child we think it will be piece of cake since we already passed that experience. It is a lie, new and different challenges a human being with different ways of thinking is there. Some strategies that worked with the first one didn't work with the youngest.
When I read about this new Hive Learners challenge I got intrigued. Asking about our experience with the first steps of a baby. The expression "first step" can be interpreted in a literal way, where it is about the actual action of first walking with two legs; or we can see it as the first moment of anything in their evolution as we do until nowadays as I did my first steps into hive about a year and something ago. And a two-year-old kid is doing "first steps" all the time. I want to add on top of that, usually, when we notice these first steps, most of the time are the first steps that we, parents, actually see them. But in some cases, they make these first steps on their own when they aren't observed.
I can list a few examples, one of them happened today, March 27th, 2023. For some unknown reason, my youngest wakes up every day around 6 am by herself, before my alarm rings. So she wakes up her sister that sleeps in the same bedroom and both come to our bedroom. And about 95% or more of the time I still want to sleep and put them on our bed in "zombie mode". Kids love being in their parent's beds, they feel safe. Parents on the other way enjoy also privacy and solitude time for a couple of hours a day right? Anyways, my youngest was pretty active, so she got my loose hand and started to bend my fingers by sequence and COUNTING.... " 1...2...3...4...5". That was her first step into counting in order and associating with objects in a moment that no one was expecting.
Some other first steps are a little bit more difficult and we need to intervene. Another recent one is getting asleep by themselves. It is difficult to learn how to sleep. And right now we are passing on this learning experience with her. Until then, I was staying with her until she falls asleep which is not recommended I know. So what happens is that she wakes up during the night 2 or more times depending on the day and she only falls asleep again when we are there. So for the 3 last days, we are trying to be strong and fighting that. Of course, she doesn't like it and her trials to convince us to stay with her are heartbreaking. What do we do? So try to keep the same routine, which is pretty regular for a while: bath, books, singing some nursing music until a maximum of 8:30 PM. After the last music, the fight begins. I wait a bit just to see if she relaxes. After that I kiss her, say that I love her, but I need to sleep with mommy. What happens after? she starts to cry and if I leave the room, she runs and starts to swing the door since she doesn't know how to use that round door handle. So I come in again and explain to her that we didn't abandon her our room is the one next door, and we just need to sleep in our bed. Well, the first night it took maybe 5-10 times that we went to her room, but it worked. Yesterday I counted 2 times each one of us entered the room again until she fell asleep.
Some first steps are tougher than others, but we as parents need to help them move forward all the time. My wife and I want both of our kids independent when they grow up and hopefully, they will have new experiences with their kids if they want to have them of course.
