u/shecanreadd

Hello, my husband and I are first-time parents. Our little guy is 16 months old.

He was an early walker so he’s pretty solid on his feet at this point! But he’s also a toddler so sometimes he waddles around like a drunk penguin. Trips and falls are inevitable, he usually has 1-3 a day.

I’d really like him to grow up to be a resilient person where if/when he trips or injures himself, he can take a moment first to assess himself and see if he’s actually hurt or not. Rather than instantly defaulting to freaking out/big sad feelings (when it’s not serious of course).

I grew up with an overly-cautious mother and any time I would even mildly stumble it was met with a loud obnoxious “HEEEEH!” (If you’re Eastern European or Arab you know lol), so I would get nervous over falls or hurting myself at all. My kneejerk reaction when my son trips or stumbles is to want to do this, but I don’t. I’m pretty good at catching myself because I don’t want him to experience that same nervous energy. But at the same time, I don’t really know what the “right” thing to do is.

What I currently do is of course first assess the situation. If it’s actually a worrying fall I’d immediately scoop him up and sooth him (this rarely happens thankfully!) But for his daily little toddler trips and stumbles, I pause, stay calm, and then say something like “you’re ok!”; “Say, ‘I’m ok!’” and then model brushing myself off. Of course if he needs more than that like a hug or wants to be picked up, I absolutely give that to him! But I’m just unsure what the right way to go about this is. Like is saying “you’re ok” teaching him to ignore what he actually might be feeling?

Kids naturally look to us for our reaction whenever anything happens. I don’t want to undermine him if he’s hurt, of course. But I also don’t want to cultivate unnecessary big feelings over really minor trips/falls. Like it sounds odd but I don’t want to reach out for him every single time he falls even though that would be my instinctive reaction.

What do you all do?

My 16 month old is on the mend from a bug, but still not well enough to take outside or to any of our usual fun activities. So we’re stuck in the house for the weekend.

I’ve been pretty hardcore about no screen time, but whenever I was sick as a child, it meant we got to cuddle up on the couch with a blankie and TV. My little guy doesn’t really want to do anything except for stay glued to me but he’s also very whiny/cranky (which is fair since he’s not feeling great). We’re a big book family but he doesn’t even want to read his books. I don’t know what else to do so I’ve resorted to some Ms. Rachel and some live baby animal videos and he’s loving them so much. I’m trying to be interactive about it so that he’s not just watching mindlessly. And it’s on the TV, not an iPad. But I can’t help but feel terribly guilty since I know that screen time can have negative impacts this young.

So, what do you moms/parents do when your little one is under the weather and you’re stuck at home? We’re on day 3. I’m going a little stir crazy myself.

Thanks in advance.