7 Toddler Tips:
More Enjoyment For You
And Your Little One
Congratulations to you, you now have a beautiful toddler at home.
You have made it through the crucial first year with your new baby, and
once walking, your baby enters the terrific toddler times and starts to
become the 'independent'. They will push the limits, test you, be
challenged and get frustrated as they learn doing things on their own.
These are great opportunities to increase the enjoyment between you and
your little one as you guide them in exploring their life and the world
around them.
Here are 7 tips to support you and to help you enjoy this time together.
Helpful Tip #1: Sleeping and Potty Training
Sleeping for toddlers is important for solid mental development and
essential physical recovery. A Structured daily routine of nap times
and early bedtimes will help revitalize your little one, reduce tantrum
frequency and give you some peace of mind.
Potty training can be difficult, but carefully watching cues from your
child will help you to judge when to introduce the potty and when to
start using it. Working together through potty training can be a great
way to help encourage your child to take independent charge of their own
functions. There are many different approaches for effectively potty
training your child, and it always goes much more smoothly when your
child is ready. Here are some of the
readiness signs and potty training basics
that we watch for and use with each child.
These ideas will work for you and your child to make a comfortable move
from diapers to signature underwear. You will need to work together
with your personalities, willpower and the events that occur in your
lives. A big event could catapult a faster potty training or could
cause the child to regress back to diaper babyhood. A few words of
encouragement:
"keep with it, they won't go to the 'big school' in diapers"
Helpful Tip #2: Health and Safety
These are some questions that we ask ourselves when our child isn't
well. we will help you to answer these questions with confidence to
come to a decision about what to do. We will share some useful tools for
a quick reference about symptoms, possible causes and steps to take.
When
dealing with Bumps, Bruises, and minor bleeding, always apply ice, ice,
ice and more ice. From our sports backgrounds we have seen that
applying ice as quickly as you can will reduce the swelling so that a
bump doesn't grow to the size of a football.
Waking up in the middle of the night to scary barking coughs from your child is a sure sign of the Croup.
The common cold
is often a culprit and a set-up to the Croup condition. We will share with you what we have learned
recognising and successfully handling Croup
from the first sign.
We would encourage you to take hands-on
first aid courses , read books and research with online resources to
better familiarize yourself and prepare yourself for any situation you
may be faced with. We will also touch on healthy teeth and car seat
safety tips.
Helpful Tip #3: Working with your Toddler
Children
love to get involved and help out around the house. They can be a lot
of fun to have helping you with cooking, baking, cleaning, taking out
the trash, doing the laundry and other chores. Check to see when they
are ready to help and use some extra patience when you are starting out.
Your child's confidence, self-esteem and belief in their independence
and abilities will soar. Start with simple tasks like helping to mix
ingredients, handing the groceries to you to put away, pouring flour
will develop but at first will need your active guidance. As their fine
motor skills continue to improve you will be able to work beside them
and not "hand on hand". Talk with them in conversation about what you
are doing and keep the encouraging words flowing. We thoroughly enjoy
our kids helpful involvement in our home.
Toddlers are ready to help out from the 'get go', when they literally start walking around. When you are ready,
cooking with children
can be a rewarding bonding experience and a great builder to their independence.
Check out our
sample talk-through making breakfast cereal
to get an idea on how you constantly talk through every step and every
thought in the process of running through a task as simple as preparing a
breakfast cereal. You can apply this approach to cooking or baking
different kids meals, snacks or desserts. Take it slow, building with
your child little by little.
We will get into how you can recognize when it is a good time to start
having your toddler help out. We will share our experiences with
preparing meals with those little hands. Every little step they do is
always worthy of praise--shower it on. We will share some toddler
recipes we have enjoyed preparing
with our children's active help like pancakes, waffles, cereal,
hamburgers, homemade fries, pizza, toast, crepes, tricky omelets, a
traditional farmer's breakfast and even jam-making. This has also given
us extra opportunities to teach and talk about having good manners.
Helpful Tip #4: Shopping with a Toddler
Let's not have our outings turn into our to do list against theirs.
Remain patient and in control when working with your toddler outside of
your home. Working through 'errands' or your agenda when out of the
familiar surroundings of home can be an exciting adventure for your
curious explorer. With the change in surroundings and the safe confines
of your home, losing control can happen quickly. We've been learning
how shopping with a toddler can be a lot of fun and a great learning,
behavior and habit forming experience.
We have put a few ideas into practice when taking a toddler out which has made our outings much more enjoyable.
Store tantrums are embarrassing
and can get out of hand very quickly. Working with our children to have and
build a wish book
has helped us to know what they really like & want and they have
even helped 'cure' tantrums while out. It is much more enjoyable
shopping with kids
now that we have some practical strategies that work, whether we have to shop for groceries, clothing or toys.
Directing
kids in positive and constructive ways to learn and develop good
manners and appropriate behaviors while out always take some extra time
when first starting, but it will become second nature for you and your
child very quickly allowing you to deal more effectively with the
'stuff' that is bound to happen when you are out with a young one.
Knowing ahead of time different strategies you have at your disposal
will make changes while out easier for both of you. Have fun and enjoy
the together time you have when you are out and about.
Helpful Tip #5:Categorize Temper Tantrums
Dealing with not getting their own way is difficult and frustrating for a
child. There are essentially 5 basic types or styles of temper
tantrums that your toddler will try on you to satisfy their cravings for
attention, to get their own way and to try and 'bend' you to allow them
new freedoms to expand their world. Each of our children have been
unique in their approaches.
Tantrums are hardly ever any fun to deal with. Whether you have experienced 'The Resilient', 'The Deep Sea Diver' or 'The Pouter' tantrums in toddlers are exciting challenges to deal with.
Check out our "Why your child is misbehaving" and "Parenting approaches for child discipline with your toddler" links under our Helpful Tip #6 for some extra help when you experience any of the
5 basic types of tantrums
with your toddler. A little extra peace goes a long way.
Practical strategies & prevention tools dealing with tantrums effectively
day in and day out. Experiment with some of these ideas to consistently
deal with the many different variations of temper tantrum
personalities.
Helpful Tip #6: Know your Discipline Strategies
The heart of child discipline lies in reaching into a child's heart and making corrections with their decision process. Your child needs clear communication as to what was unacceptable and possible corrections to their behavior. With each discipline approach speak clearly with your child before the discipline(if they are coherent) and ensure after the discipline measure they know you love them while stressing the issue that their choice of behavior was unacceptable. Let your little one know that they are a good child and that you really love them, and that your love for them will never change. While hugging your child reaffirm your love to them:
"Daddy Loves you, Daddy loves Johnny, Johnny is a good boy"
Repeat these statements over and over again until they hear your words with their heart, this takes us anywhere from 5 to 8 times, and sometimes more. Some of these strategies will work better than others depending on the situation you are dealing with.why your child is misbehavingparenting approaches for child discipline with your toddler
Helpful Tip #7: Games and Activities.
Have
fun with some toddler games and activities. There are a lot of them
that you can use regardless of the time of the year. Toddler education
through play will help your child for their future language development
and number literacy. Such play will help your child's brain development
and increase their 'left brain' and 'right brain' connections.
Be
prepared to slow down and sit on the flour to play with your toddler.
Take some time to organize your home to be a safe and interesting place
for your child to explore and discover. Time together with your child
will be remembered Whether you are building the world's biggest
skyscraper, counting jelly beans, playing cards, 'vrooming' cars, having
a tea party, designing train tracks or learning to play ball. We will
give you the teacher, learner and parent perspectives for specific play
to clearly show some of the incredible benefits you and your child gain
from playing and learning together. Like those fingerprints on the wall,
they will be gone before you know it.
