One of the things that we are starting to feel is necessary is for Hannah to start socializing with other children around her age. We don’t have any friends with young infants, so the only real experience she has had are friends of her brother and sister, who are obviously older than she is.
We can’t send her to daycare. She has too many “issues” that would not make it safe for her to be there nor would we probably be able to have her in a regular daycare. There are no “special needs” daycares near us, as we found out the nearest two are 2 hours and almost 4 hours away from us.
So we are limited in our options.
I took advantage of trying out a free MyGym class Monday afternoon to see how she would do in it. The class was for the 7mo to 13mo babies. There were only two little boys in there, about 7mo and 10mo. They were so incredibly active — one was crawling all over the place, the other was waddling around. They were throwing things, crawling up on things, going in and out of tubes.
Hannah just sat there, holding a little ball in her hand.
As I was sitting there trying to help Hannah get to her knees just to get into a crawling position, I saw the other two moms look at me with that look of confusion on their faces. They were very sympathetic, but it seemed to me they were looking for an explanation (I probably would too). So I shared that she has some delays. From that moment on, you could see the friendly pity in their faces, which even though they were incredibly sweet, it just made me uncomfortable since Hannah couldn’t do most of what the two boys were doing.
It just wasn’t right for Hannah.
After talking to my neighbor, we are going to check out Kindermusic. Perhaps something not so focused on the physical would be a better social situation for Hannah to start with. We are going to try out their free class on Thursday morning. This class is geared for newborns to 18 months, so I think this larger age range would give us more flexibility as well.
We will see how that works out!
I hope the Kindermusik is better for you. Hopefully there will be more kids which I think would help.
Trying the Kindermusik sounds like a good idea and I hope it’s a good fit. I can’t wait to hear how it goes.
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One of the first ways I socialize my kids is story hour at the library (which is really story and song 20 minutes for the babies and gets longer and more stories with less songs as they get older). I think my oldest was about 8 weeks old when he went to his first, my second was under 2 weeks old. We have even gone to story hours when on vacation in different states.
Another way I socialize my kids is through Mom&Tot outings and playgroups through our local Early Childhood PTA (it is part of national PTA, but just for kids before they hit school age, so they do activities appropriate for them).
Our local rec center and nature center also have programs for mom & babies. Some rec centers have “open preschool gym” hours, which some seem to attract smaller kids. Many are you just sign up for the day(s) you can make it, other are just come when you can.
I second the local library for story hour times. While Nolan doesn’t have any physical delays, our local library toddler story hour has been WONDERRFUL. They have introduced some baby sign to the other toddlers, have lots of different ways to interact with the stories being read, and really seem to care about the little guys. Plus, its free (g).
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This sounds like a really good plan… the range will help her fit in better.
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