How to engage with a passive child, or using your loaf

Looking back, Ava was always easy going. A baby who was content to sit on my lap and watch the world go by. She was a clockwork baby, and I patted myself in the back for how easy she was compared to her challenging, demand avoidant brother.

Aged ten, we connect with cuddles on the sofa, getting comfy in our pyjamas, and watching programmes on her special interest subjects- animals, or baking. But picking her up from school can feel like an exercise in drawing blood from a stone. One word answers, one-sided conversations. She’s not without charm but occasionally comes across as blank, disinterested, unengaged with the world around her. It can be difficult to know what to do with her, and trying new things can be frustrating and cause friction. She rarely misbehaves, but when she was younger would often misfire. Tortuous horseriding lessons (she just didn’t get the motions required to manipulate a pony into a trot) and ice skating lessons spent focusing on boots not laced tight enough, took a lot of the joy out of doing things together.

As she grew older, I guess I stopped bothering so much. She climbs, like her older brother, and goes to Scouts, but I rarely need to get involved. She is self-sufficient, calm, takes herself to school and home again, and never gives me any back chat.

But at the weekends, she needs a lot of time to get over her week, never feels the need to socialise, and when her brother’s busy, she’s content to sit in her room watching YouTube videos ad nauseum, which can leave me feeling a little guilty.

This weekend, Jonah has a climbing comp, and being 39 weeks pregnant notwithstanding, a Saturday alone with her can feel like hole to fill. I can happily head to pre-natal yoga (assuming the baby hasn’t put in an appearance,) on my own, and know that when I get home, she’ll still be cosy in bed having missed me not one iota. Like I say, she’s easy. But this can make it easy to do nothing with her.

One of the benefits of being on maternity leave now is having the time to indulge in some of her special interests. Baking is something she loves and is happy to get on with without too much input from me (I’m more of a soup, stew of curry-making type of a girl), but she has the care and precision needed to make great bakes and we’ve all filled out on her offerings over the past few months.

And with bread now costing £4 a loaf round my ends (yes we’re talking handcrafted sourdough not Tesco’s finest, but I’m gluten sensitive and what?) I’ve put her to work earning a crust while I claim parenting poverty on my maternity leave.

And she’s good at it- her bread is perfect, using kneading tongs and a mixture of flours, she’s really starting to build up a baking repertoire that could one day land her on Bake Off, should she ever get over her natural reticence for showing off- which she sure didn’t inherit from me.

In the meantime, it’s a great way of getting her away from her room and doing something constructive. Our tech-free Tuesdays have now become her baking night- I just need to steer her away from too many sweet treats towards healthier bakes or else the whole family will be on a post-baby diet.

In other news, the bun in my oven is practically cooked, and I’m torn between hoping for another easy one, and knowing in my heart of hearts that a baby with a bit of gumption may be easier to engage with long term. Either way, I think they are born with their personalities fully formed- all we can do as parents is tweak them in the right direction, so I’m keen to find out what the little pony stampeding in my belly bump has in store for me down the road.

One thing’s for sure, siblings are rarely alike, so I may find myself wishing once again for my little clockwork baby but finding myself with another little handful.