I’ve got no chill and it’s driving me crazy
I have an 8mo baby who is a happy and busy little guy. He’s having a great time, but I feel like I’m realising that I may have been doing some things wrong, and it’s starting to eat me up. I’ll preface this by saying I get health anxiety and think I must definitely have PPA, or the anxiety I’ve always had is now magnified since becoming a mother.
I’ve applied so much pressure to myself for baby’s development since 3 months old, rolling, sitting, tracking, you name it I’ve been obsessed with it and now I think it’s at a detriment to myself daily. He’s just started trying to say ‘ma’ ‘ba’ ‘mumum’ ‘bbb’ and everywhere online says babies start babbling around 6 months. He’s always been so vocal, but now I am seeing the change in his noises to try and babble which I know is good and babbling may happen soon, but I’m (itrationally?) terrified he will never talk. I feel like I’m constantly trying to get him to babble, or I’ve been talking to him throughout the entire day and have I made him not want to babble by overstimulating him? Some days I panic that I’m not doing parentese enough or the right way. I just feel exhausted and honestly awful for this pressure I’m creating and want it to stop.
Weaning is going well, he loves food. I do a mix of mushy food and blw. I feed him while I’m cooking dinner, I talk and do little sing song shows to him in the high chair but i don’t often sit down in front of him while he’s eating. I will get down onto his level and do it that way. I now feel like I’ve done a disservice by not sitting calmly with him eating, I am right next to him, but cooking and then focusing on him during it.
I know I’m applying too much pressure on myself and this probably sounds ridiculous! I just can’t stop overanalysing my actions and then feeling like I’m either doing too much with my baby and potentially overstimulating him, or I’m doing too little. Does anyone have any tips to actually just chill the f out?