Stressed about teaching my 15-month-old

[Anonymous]

Just talk to your kid. Read lots of books. Narrate your trips to the grocery store (ohh - look at these green grapes! Let’s put them in the cart!”). Sing songs. Play with balls, and blocks, and puzzles. Spend lots of time outside. Visit the zoo or a farm or a construction site to watch the trucks.

You really don’t need to formally teach your baby anything - and doing so takes away from what she should be doing: exploring the world in age appropriate ways. Introduce them to the world and surround them with love and language and she’ll do great. Once she’s about four, you can start introducing letters and filling in any holes in typical kindergarten knowledge, but if she’s typically developing you likely won’t even need to.

[Anonymous]

Best thing you can do for her is to keep her off of screens for as long as possible.

[Anonymous]

Babies absorb everything. Just talk to them throughout the day and be explicit about the things you see and do. Read to them. You don’t necessarily need to read the words to the story, but just point to the pictures and say the name of the object and talk about it: what color is it? What does it do? What letter does it start with? They will pick up letters, numbers, and colors that way.

And find Ms. Rachel on YouTube! She has taught my baby a lot!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here’s the teaching approach you need for the next several years.

1) talk to her throughout the day. Give her time to respond back in the conversation.

2) read lots of books to her pointing at things

3) sing songs you remember from your childhood. Or get a book of kids songs out from the library and try some of those.

4) go for walks or to a playground and point out things you see during the walk. “Look at that yellow flower. Isn’t the yellow flower pretty?”

100% this. My toddler can identify colors/animals/count to 5/ knows shapes, etc just because we read to her a lot and when we play with things it's like oo Yay a duck. Wow you stacked the red triangle! Frankly think that's the best way to learn for all of preschool. I lol at daycare bragging about their toddler curriculum ( under 2) curriculum

[Anonymous]

1. Relax!
2. Talknto you kid, describe what youre doing etc
3. Read books to them. Kid books but also just read what you want out loud. DH read the economist to our babies because he was bored reading little kid books
4. Play, sing songs, clap, let them explore pots and pans and boxes etc.
5. Realize that all kids develop differently. I have 1 who was super verbal at 3 and talked in full correct sentences in 2 languages. And another kid who barely talked at 3 using 2 word phrases. They are both at school now and doing well and both wont stop talking.

[Anonymous]

The only thing thing you need to consciously do is talk your child a lot --- narrate your life and read out loud.

For everything else just having your baby near you (or some responsible adult) experiencing and interacting the world, not cooped in a crib or a wrap all day, is plenty.

[Anonymous]

Music, singing, reading, talking, doing low key activities (not necessarily paid and organized)

[Anonymous]

You should already have a sense if your child is Ivy material or not based on how well they're picking up on words and sounds. If they're not ahead of major development milestones it's over.

[Anonymous]

OP, just wanted to say we’ve all been there with the mom guilt! I was anxious about what you were thinking of too, and ended up taking a step back to just enjoy time with my toddler. I do try to talk as much as I can about the world around us, talk about emotions and reactions, but also it’s ok to be too tired to do that too. Learning how to be bored is good too.

[Anonymous]

I can’t tell if this is real or a spoof. I read it several times and can’t decide.

[Anonymous]

Your husband is right you should relax. You really don't need to worry about teaching those academic skills at 15 months old. They teach letters, numbers and shapes in kindergarten if you can't believe it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Babies absorb everything. Just talk to them throughout the day and be explicit about the things you see and do. Read to them. You don’t necessarily need to read the words to the story, but just point to the pictures and say the name of the object and talk about it: what color is it? What does it do? What letter does it start with? They will pick up letters, numbers, and colors that way.

And find Ms. Rachel on YouTube! She has taught my baby a lot!

No, don't put your child in front of a screen no matter how good the programming is. In person talking and interaction is 1000 times better than a program on a screen.

[Anonymous]

What is the origin of your Mom guilt? Addressing that with a therapist will make you a better parent

[Anonymous]

Maybe *you* are bored, OP. I was SAH with my oldest when he was that age and I realized that I was the one who needed/wanted a “curriculum” because it was so boring to do X and Y all day. Now I have three kids and SAH and it isn’t boring at all (even without a curriculum). My advice would be to do more a things that can be rewarding for adults and kids. For me, this was taking my oldest on hikes and to museums. Do you have neighbor friends with kids? I needed more people (especially ones who could talk) in my day at that stage.

[Anonymous]

It’s ok! Don’t worry. Your baby just needs you. Narrate what you are doing. For example, I hold my 18 month old as I make the coffee in the morning and it sounds inane, but I explain each step, let her touch the filter, hold the little scooper, we count 5 scoops, now it’s time for water. We want cold water. Feel? Cold water. Okay, time to push the button. Do you want to push it? Let me see your little finger. Look, the light turned on. It’s blue. Blue light means the coffee is on. Let’s move away because it will get hot.

I just do that throughout the day. We try not to use any screens while she’s awake. I also try to have some time every day where we read board books together. Right now she likes those big ones with the realistic pictures. I think it’s the First 100 Words series. She points and I tell her what each thing is.

She doesn’t really play independently yet, maybe 2-3 minutes here and there, so I just sort of involve her in what I’m doing in the house or at the store or wherever.