Every time we take our baby
out and people find out that she’s not walking on her own yet, we get a sympathetic
look from them and the added line, “You know, babies that crawl longer are
smarter,” as if that makes everything all better. Well, no more! As of last week, Caitlyn has official begun walking on her own! They may be a few
off-balanced steps, but they are steps in the right direction.
With so many people making
the comment that babies who crawl longer turn out smarter, I wanted to see if
there was any truth behind it. Unfortunately, while there hasn’t been any
research that has sufficiently proven this, crawling does have its benefits,
which may be how this old wive’s tale came to be.
Crawling stimulates different
areas of the brain and also coordinates the use of both eyes, feet, ears, and
hands.
Crawling is believed to increase the production of myelin, the substance that
coats nerve cells. Myelin helps in the process of sending and receiving
messages more quickly and efficiently.
Crawling strengthens a baby’s
neck, arms, joints, and muscles. This makes a baby’s gross and fine-motor
skills more fluid.
The repeated movements from
crawling stimulate and help develop the brain’s neural connections in a baby,
which in turn makes the brain more efficient in controlling cognitive processes
such as understanding, concentration, and memory.
With all these positive
benefits, maybe our baby can crawl her way to Harvard!
Because it’s the wife that
spends the majority of the day taking care of the baby, and because she’s the
one that will be taking her to and from the nursery, she has ruled that she has
precedence over which place to send our baby too.
However, being the generous
person that she is, she has graciously agreed to listen to my opinions, think about them for a
minute, and then promptly toss them out the window. And that is how Option A
came to be crossed off the list.
To make sure she was making
the right choice with Option B, she went to sit in on a class this week.
However, she came out of it thoroughly disappointed. The staff members were not
friendly or helpful and the teachers just stood around watching the
babies while they crawled around.
And that’s why we now have Option C. Let’s compare
again.
Option B: Pros
It’s gotten high marks from
people online.
It’s in a better part of
the city.
It actually has a small
class size – 8.
While it’s still considered
far, the wife discovered she can take the bus there, which means we cut down on
cab fare.
Cons
Equipment and supplies are a
bit dirty and rundown.
More expensive.
Staff not helpful or
friendly.
Option
C: Pros
Staff is more friendly and
organized.
Cleaner.
Cheaper. The cost of full-day
tuition is the same as half-day tuition at Option B.
Cons
It’s further away. No
convenient bus or subway routes.
Has a lot more students
All this has led to a lot of
back and forth debating between the wife and herself all week over which place
to pick.
To me, it’s not that
difficult to make a choice here. Of course, this coming from the person that
took over a week to decide on which crib mobile to buy. But that’s like comparing
apples to oranges. It's a completely different case and set of circumstances.
When
there are many factors
that go into making a decision, you need to figure out which ones are
the most
important to you and which will have the most impact.
Option C is not
that much cleaner than Option B to make a difference, and as I've said
before, as long as the teachers are keeping a watchful eye on the
children, that's all I ask for. Therefore, I think the deciding factors
here are class size and money.
The tuition at Option C
might be cheaper, but the money you’re saving is just going to go into the
taxi driver’s pocket from all the round-way trips you'll be making.
Also,
because Option has such a high number of students, the chances of her
getting sick will be greater, which means we'll have to shell out even
more money for rides to the doctor's and for the medical bill. Option B is obviously the
way to go, but will the wife listen to a humble peasant's opinion? Stay tuned as we find out together!
The wife is at her wit’s
end dealing with the baby. She’s proposed that we send our child to a daycare
or nursery for half the day to help get her accustomed to not having Mommy or
Daddy around. I tend to agree with this. If we don’t nip this in the butt now,
it’ll only become that much harder to separate Caitlyn from us as she gets
older. And by that time, the wife will probably have lost all her hair.
In an ideal world, the
daycare/nursery of our choosing would meet all of our requirements. But we live
in a far from ideal world. There has to be a bit of give and take. You have to
decide what you can and can’t tolerate in a place, and then make a decision
based off of it.
There are two places that
we are considering. Here are the pros and cons of both.
Option A:
Pros
It’s literally right around
the corner from our house. It’s convenient, and for a worrier like me wife,
very ideal for her to pop by at any time to check up on the baby.
They recently relocated to a new building, so the facility is brand new and
everything inside is clean.
Currently, there are only 3
other babies enrolled there, so class size would be small. The teacher would have
an easier time managing the babies and keeping an eye on them.
Cons
The wife isn’t exactly keen
on the area that we currently live in right now and fears the quality of
teachers here are not up to par. She worries they won’t take good care of our
baby.
There hasn’t been much
feedback or reviews online about this place, so who knows if they are good or
not.
Option B:
Pros
It’s well-established with
a lot of positive reviews online. The wife feels a bit more safe about sending
our baby to a place like this.
It’s in a better part of
the city.
Cons
It’s about a 30 minute ride
away. Wouldn’t be convenient for the wife who would have to take a taxi there
and back since she doesn’t have a car. She’d run herself ragged shuttling back
and forth. And what if there’s an emergency and she needs to get there quickly?
When we went there for open
house, I found a lot of the equipment to be run down, dirty, or broken.
More expensive.
Larger class size. Will our
baby really get the attention that she needs? Plus, with more kids, that means
there's a greater chance of getting sick.
There’s a waiting list. Who
knows how long it would be before we got in.
If you haven’t guessed it
yet, I’m all for Option A while the wife is all for Option B. My main deciding
factor is that it’s convenient. I’m not really concerned whether or not the
teachers are world-class educators because our baby is not primarily going
there to learn. She’s going there so she can get used to being away from Mommy.
As long as the teachers keep can an eye on her and keep her safe, that’s all I
could ask for.
Somehow, the wife feels that if we do try out
Option A, we’re going to be stuck there and has really balked at testing it
out. Obviously, if the place isn’t a good match, we can always try the place of
her choosing. I highly doubt a nursery would hold our daughter hostage and say
that we can't leave. The sooner we start sending her to a nursery, the
quicker and easier it will be for her to get used to not always having to cling
to Mommy.
Something that I’ve been
keeping an eye on for awhile now is Caitlyn’s speech development. For a long time,
there was none. I kept reading about how babies would start babbling or making
different sounds around 4 to 6 months. The only sound Caitlyn had been making for the past year was a whiny ‘unghhh!’ She wasn’t producing any vowel or consonant sounds.
At her last check-up, I asked our family
pediatrician whether we should be concerned or not. After all, there might be
some developmental delays that we should be aware of. But she said we should
only be worried if Caitlyn wasn’t making any different sounds by the time she
was 15 months.
Thankfully, when she hit
13.5 months, she was finally able to produce a very, very faint “da” sound. And
now that she’s 14 months, she’s able to say “da-da” loud and clear. Obviously, I'm very excited about this. Caitlyn may want Mommy more, but at least I can lay claim to the fact that she called my name first! Hopefully,
this is only the beginning of a long string of sounds that will be coming from
her mouth.
Another major development
that recently happened in our household is the departure of Caitlyn’s crib from our room to her own. She’s always
slept in the same room as us, but I figured she was old enough to sleep by
herself now. Plus, I thought it might also help her sleep better too because she wouldn’t
be disturbed by our movements or the wife’s snoring.
We’ve had her in her own
room for about a week now, and it seems to be working. She has one last feeding
at about 11 or 12 at night and then she’ll sleep through the night until about
7. If she does wake up during the night, we’ll just let her cry it out until she
settles herself back down to sleep.
Frankly, we probably should
have started this a long time ago, but better late than never. We now have a newfound sense of privacy that we haven't had in awhile, but unfortunately, we haven't been taking advantage of it because we're both too tired to do anything once we hit the bed.
This new nighttime
schedule has also helped out with Caitlyn's daytime schedule. She naps at more
consistent times now, usually at 10 am. and 3 p.m., for about 1 to 1.5 hours each
time. Her appetite has also become a lot better, probably because we’ve cut out
her nighttime feedings. She’s able to eat a whole bowl of rice, veggies, and
meat without much prodding for lunch and dinner.
And her walking is improving daily. She can walk
quickly around with her walker now, and is more willing to be led along by holding
onto our hands. While she’s still trying to find her balance, she is able to
stand on her own for a few seconds now.
Looks like my little baby won’t be a baby for
much longer anymore!
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