Help Babies Tell Time

I remember how I felt when I learned how to tell time. In control and relieved. I finally had something to measure with. Because I remember wanting to know how to tell time from a young age, when I became a mother, I practiced something that I'm sharing with other parents, because it works. At least, it works for us.

When my son was a small baby, I knew I wouldn't be giving him lessons in watching the clock. However, I felt he was intelligent enough to learn some things. I figured it must be frustrating to want to know about things and not be able to express this wish in words. Before children speak, they understand the spoken word.

I decided to respect my son's intelligence and need for control by giving him time approximations.

If we were in the car, and he was fussy, instead of saying, "We'll be home soon," I would say, "We'll be home...in about 15 minutes." Before we took a long car ride, I would tell him, "We're going to be in the car for a long time today, about 2 hours to go to Seattle, and then 2 hours back." I did this from the time he was a newborn.

When you do this all the time, giving them specifics and not generalities, they pick up on time approximations. And when they know time approximations, they feel more in control of their environment and feel more relaxed, knowing what that means. He knows the difference between seconds ("right back!"), minutes, hours, and days. He is in a state of trauma now, where he's hypersensitive to anyone leaving him. My aunt left the room and he cried. I told him she was coming back. He still cried, until I told him, "She'll be back in 2 hours." Then he stopped crying. He used to do this in the car with me, if he wanted out of his carseat. I could tell him it was just a little bit longer, and he'd still fuss. But if I said, "We'll be home and I will get you out of your carseat in 10 minutes" he would stop fussing. He also knew, as a baby, that if I said we were going somewhere later in the day, that's where we were really going to go.

Children have long memories.