Last night Sadie and I went to a potluck dinner with my “Mommy Group”. It was chaos enough to make me laugh about what I had written about being one and done. There were four sets of sibs (4 & 2, 4 & 20 Months, 5 & 3 and 3 & 5 months) and one other only child who was the same age as Sadie. The theme of the night was hitting, fighting, tattling, screaming and crying. The other moms were all losing their cool on the kids and I was sitting back thinking “OMG...this really sucks, get me out of here”. Sadie was far from innocent in the toddler melee. She was at the centre of it and most often the cause as the other 17 month old (2 days older) was quiet and cautious.
Sadie is “active". Actually, she is very active and is way more active than any other toddler in her Little Gym class. She was even outshining some of the older kids with her gross motor skills last night (showing off by climbing on things and standing up). It’s exhausting and I don’t want to end up one of those moms who has the kid that everyone knows is a troublemaker. In her defence, her behaviour is that way because she gets really excited around other kids, I think.
I don't know, should we start to worry that she is overactive? Or is this just toddler hood? Should I mention it to her doctor? I mean, I do have a history of ADHD. I was a wild child.
Don’t get me wrong, Sadie is PERFECT and I see nothing wrong with her personally. I’d rather her be this way than a kid that cries all the time and has no confidence. The thing is that I do see how other people react to her and I hear their comments, “is she always like this?”, “is she like this at home?”… lovely. They’re laughing and think she’s adorable but I don’t want her to be known as Sadie “the hyper kid”. KWIM? I know they're secretly happy their toddler isn't as craazy.
Am I overreacting? Is this totally normal?
What you described sounds like normal toddler behaviour. I wouldn't worry but it doesn't hurt to mention it to your doctor if you want peace of mind. I think it's normal at that age. Some kids are just more active (and more monkey-ish with the climbing etc.)than others. Erik used to be like that as a toddler. He was very busy around the age Sadie is now but he's chilled out over time. When Ian was born my SIL said, "Maybe he'll be your easy kid" and Kim and I were like, what does she mean by that? It never occurred to us that Erik was more "difficult" than other babies, but looking back, he was harder than Ian is because he needed to be constantly entertained, whereas Ian is great at doing his own thing. Erik still needs way more attention than Ian does, but it's just his personality.
ReplyDeleteI definitely think there are climbers and non-climbers. Thankfully for my anxiety, chunk is a non-climber but I know a boy there same age that climbs on EVERYTHING. Just part of their personality. All toddlers are different and they tend to have strong personalities. Chunk is always moving, just on the ground-running around and being an overall busy body. I think the older she gets, if you still sense an issue, then you could raise it with your doc. Toddlers are much harder (in my opinion) than newborns!
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