This parenting thing is tough! And no doubt it’ll get more difficult as Baby R gets older, not to mention if we have any more children. I’m sure many of you with older children—and more than one child—can attest to that!!

It seems that no matter how hard I try, I still seem to mess up this whole parenting thing. I mean, it’s tough to keep up with what you’re “supposed” to do to keep up with your ever-growing child. One day you’re rocking her to sleep. The next day you’re trying to break her of the habit. One day you’re cutting up her bananas into swallow-able pieces. The next you’re cutting the bananas into spears so she can learn to bite and chew her food. Want some more real-life examples?

To kick things off, my daughter is about 15-months-old. I remember when she was around 5 months old, I recently had returned to work and finally felt like I had “mastered” our schedule! We found our rhythm. Fast forward a mere week or two and I realized that our schedule will be ever-evolving. She wasn’t strictly eating formula and cereal anymore; she now was experiencing different “grown up” foods. So as Baby R was growing, I needed to grow and change with her—which also meant our schedule would need tweaking along the way. To help keep up with all these changes, I was diligent in reading all of my “monthly emails” I’d receive about “this is what your child should be doing at this age” to make sure she was developing properly and we were making changes accordingly.

Well, we go to her 12-month wellness pediatrician appointment. The nurse asks “has she moved off of formula and is she drinking whole milk?” WHAT? I totally missed that memo. Talk about freaking out! Thoughts were whirling through my head like “I’m doing a disservice to my child” or “I’m stunting my child’s growth.” Then I realized, a week or two isn’t going to make or break her. We bought milk on the way home (along with some “toddler formula” just in case I needed to wean her). Well, turns out she doesn’t like milk so much. She’d much prefer to drink water. Great. So I continue feeding her the “toddler formula” just to keep proper nutrients flowing into her body.

Then at 13 months, I read that she should be off the bottle entirely! Holy crap, I can’t keep up with all the changes! I just graduated her to the next level of formula, and now she’s supposed to be off of the bottle completely? *sigh* A few days later, I read that it’s ideal to have her off the bottle by 18 months at the latest. So begins the process. I have five months to make this happen. Thankfully, she was super easy and we had her weaned off within two or three weeks. But still!

What’s next? I wish I knew. Probably potty training or moving her to a “big girl’s bed” or something else with which I’m not ready to cope. Despite all my research, I still will likely overlook something and feel like I’m playing catch up. At the same time, we all need to remember that kids are resilient. One wrong (or delayed) decision won’t ruin them for life—at least less likely at this young age. The most important thing is that they are well fed and well loved. Everything else will fall into place as long as we are looking for opportunities to let them grow and change.

So don’t worry about messing up the parenting thing. Just love on your kids and they’ll be just fine.