Tiny new person

[liv]

So my partners and metamour had a baby this week! It's very exciting, but also very weird because we are quarantined apart. I had been a bit nervous and a lot excited about forming a relationship with a child from birth (I suppose that was the case with my siblings, but the period when I was aged 2-6 doesn't count in quite the same way.) But now that's not really going to happen; I'm planning to carry on waving to her from 2m away, but babies don't bond to people who occasionally wave from 2m away.

There's no point being sad about no baby cuddles; I'm already properly sad about having to stay physically distanced from my actual partners and the middle two children whom I miss desperately. Family life during a a pandemic is weird, but that's hardly news.

I started spending extended time with her older siblings when they were 2 1/2 and 6 (now 8 and 11). The thing I found most difficult about interacting with younger children is how emotionally intense they are. Does anyone have any advice (from personal experience or theoretical knowledge) about how to cope when people you care about find every small setback or frustration devastatingly upsetting? It's something I want to do better this time. Note that I don't want advice on how to prevent small children from inconveniently expressing emotions around me, I just want to find better ways of handling my own feelings.

It's probably a skill worth learning in general, because with a terrifying global pandemic everybody is more emotionally on edge than usual. And of course it's something that all parents must manage somehow. I just... don't see it talked about a lot in eg parenting guides.

Comments

[rosefox]

Yes, I think those books come from a similar foundation to RIE-style "sportscasting". It turns out to be really useful for adults too, especially in a household full of fix-it types; when we all get in the habit of going "Ooof, that sounds really hard and upsetting" instead of (or at least before) trying to leap in with solutions, everyone feels much happier!

As far as I can tell, children are overstimulated all the time, as much by what's happening inside them as by things out in the world. Being a child in an adult world means constantly being confused and not understood and not accommodated even when you thought you were making a reasonable request. I'm autistic and I know those feelings and experiences extremely well. If I can remind myself of that, I can have a whole lot of patience and sympathy for the frustration of being in that situation.

[mrissa]

Yeah, "it's hard to be little" is a thing I say to myself a lot, because it really, really is. They're juggling learning literally everything at once.

[rosefox]

As a short person, I connect very strongly with children's experience of a world in which everything is the wrong size and/or out of reach.