I admit it. I am one of those parent worriers.

Before I became a parent, I loved planning ten years into the future (and more).

When I transitioned into parenthood, I naturally also carried these planning tendencies of mine into parenting.

Despite the sleep-deprived nights driven by breastfeeding on demand, I still forced myself to stay awake to read about baby development milestones.

When my baby showed no signs of crawling or interest in walking, rather than let nature take its course, I decided to do something about it. I actively created crawling and walking opportunities, used a toy walker and even got down on hands and knees myself to crawl along with my baby. My efforts paid off as she met her milestones.

Yes, I am that mummy.

But I am glad that I finally learned to let go…well, just a little anyway.

I Knew I Had to Stop Worrying About My Kid

Before I had kids, I considered myself a pretty positive person. I felt that I had control over most of my day and despite the occasional stresses that I encountered, I generally was able to stay positive.

However, once I became a mom, I realized that my baby took away almost 99% of the control that I previously had over my day. I think that this is especially so if you are 24/7 with your child. I considered myself lucky if I even found time to take a shower.

If your ‘boss’ is a baby, there is no demanding or fighting with a baby. They don’t listen to reason, they don’t follow labor laws and they are definitely not thinking about your needs. They don’t care if you haven’t had time to go to the bathroom or eat.

Coupled with sleep deprivation on a constant basis, you have trouble quietly brewing underneath any cheery surface.

But there is light at the end of the tunnel.

As my baby grew into a toddler, she started to become more independent, empathetic and was even helpful to me on many occasions.

Still, I didn’t stop worrying about her development and future.

Toddler Problems

My baby worries morphed into toddler worries and new toddler milestones to meet.

There are many problems that parents of toddlers deal with, but I personally struggled with my kid’s separation anxiety, sharing and potty training.

Some people mention the Terrible Two’s when tantrums become evident. Although we saw a few tantrums with our two year old, they didn’t happen very often and it didn’t affect us that much.

Instead, I found the Terrible Threes more challenging as our kid started to verbally disagree with us and demand independence.

Separation Anxiety

As mentioned before, one of my biggest challenges with my toddler was separation anxiety. I work from home while caring for my child full-time. I always accompanied my toddler to play dates, library story times and was with her all the time. In many ways, I was her ever present advocate, protector and play friend.

Unfortunately, I think this also made separation anxiety, worse.

She would happily play with other kids, but only as long as she could see me out of the corner of her eye. Once I left the room, all hell would break loose.

As you can imagine, this presented a lot of problems for me. The main one being that I could not get a decent break. I became exhausted from parenting.

We tried different things including a short-term nanny, a popular Sunday School nursery and a swim class where she would spend one-on-one time with the teacher, while I watched from the sidelines. It all ended in tears, even after we persevered for several months.

Separation Anxiety Solved

Finally, I found a tiny Sunday School where the class only had four kids in it with two teachers. She even knew one of the kids there already. The teachers put their hearts and souls into helping our toddler feel comfortable. After persevering for two months, I was finally able to leave my toddler in the care of these teachers without any protest from my toddler.

I felt like I had found a new lease on life.

A year later when she turned three, it was time for my toddler to start preschool (some parts of the world refer to this phase as kindergarten). Remembering how difficult it had been to deal with my toddler’s earlier separation anxiety, I was worried.

But this time, it was a breeze. My toddler waltzed into class on her first day (at least it seemed like that to me) and had a blast.

Since then, my toddler has been to several other preschools and she has not cried a single tear, even on her first day. She makes friends easily and she is thriving in these new environments without fear.

I still find it hard to believe that this is my daughter. The change has been incredible.

I believe that my daughter was able to overcome separation anxiety because she grew mentally (she knew that I would come back), emotionally (she became more courageous) as well as socially (she learned to speak up and had increased self-confidence). Also, because off her positive experience in her tiny Sunday School, she had learned to trust other caregivers apart from me.

Although for a long time I despaired over whether she would grow out of her challenges, she eventually did. It was mostly nature, taking its course.

The point I am trying to make is that our kids change and mature, just like we do. Even though it may seem that your kid is never going to get there, eventually they do.

I have noticed this with my other toddler worries below too.

Sharing

I had the opposite experience of other parents when it came to sharing.

When she was below two and a half, my kid had no problems sharing. She would share her toys and she would share her food. She also didn’t fight back when other kids took her toys. If they offered a toy in exchange, she happily accepted it, even if it wasn’t the original toy that she wanted.

That bothered me. Was my toddler too easygoing?

While other moms of similar-age kids were trying to teach their kids to share, I was trying to teach my child not to let other kids take her toys. Isn’t it weird what we parents worry about?

Well, I should have appreciated that phase because when my toddler turned three, her possessive tendency took over. Suddenly, she was willing to scream and hit in order to have the toy that she wanted.

I now teach her to share, say ‘No’ and ask. But I am not as worried as before. I realize that as long as I continue to parent her with love, values and teach her good behavior, she will eventually get it.

Potty Training

One of my other toddler challenges is potty training.

Some people say that there is no rush but in our case, our preschool required her to be potty-trained by three.

My kid had previously showed interest in potty training but it had never been successful so far. By the time she turned three, the little interest she had shown in potty training had completely disappeared. In fact, she told me she enjoyed being in diapers.

Treats and bribes didn’t work, threats didn’t work. Taking her to sit on the potty at regular intervals didn’t work. Asking her to choose her favorite undies didn’t work. I was at a loss at what to do.

Finally, my husband made a casual remark to me while I was sharing my woes of failed attempts of potty training. He suggested that instead of letting her wear diapers, or walk around butt-naked at home, we should just require her to wear undies while she played at home.

And like magic, it worked. She went on the potty. Voluntarily.

Go figure.

Do What You Can But Let Go of the Rest

I have still lots to figure out (and I will happily share them here when I do) but I have now reached this conclusion; do what you can to help your kid but let go of the rest.

I worried a lot about my kid but eventually, she worked it out.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t do anything if you see your kid struggling. If you are worried about something, bring them to see experts, send them to classes, invest in a new toy that you think will help, spend time working on gaps that you identify. Do all of these.

But then, let go.

Don’t spend sleepless nights worrying (it’s not worth the gray hairs and under eye bags). Pray a lot if you believe in it and then, let go and stop worrying.

Easier said than done but I am getting better at it.

If you want to do further reading about toddler problems, here are some resources: