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One of my friends called me the other day. She was panicking because her two-year-old had just given up his nap, and her days with him were feeling relentlessly long. She asked me how I had managed when Ben and Jack were toddlers. I thought for a bit. I can hardly remember the boys being toddlers. I have the kind of amnesia for those years that all mothers seem to have about labor and delivery. It’s a protective amnesia, one ensuring that women will consider having second or third children.

I told my friend that I’d have to get back to her after I’d jogged and prodded my poor memory. Because I had my strategies for getting through those days, I know I did. Sure enough, I poked around in the cobwebbed corners and recesses of my mind and came up with a few tips to share with her, and now with you:

• Rotate toys: Toddlers get bored of seeing the same old toys every morning. Stash a group of toys in a closet, attic, or basement so that every eight weeks or so, you can replace the been-there-done-that toys with some “new” toys, toys from your very own store. Believe you me, toddlers do not have particularly good long-term memories. Those “new” toys will seem brand-spankin’ new to them. Also, remember to mix it up once in a while. Don’t put the toys in the same spots every day. Rearrange the toy shelves. You’d be surprised at how a little rearranging can recapture a toddler’s attention and interest. (All of the above applies equally for books.)


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• Keep trips short and sweet: Staying inside all day is a bad, bad idea with this age group and will make time slow until it more or less screeches to a halt. On the other hand, too many parents plan outings without regard for the constrained attention span of a toddler. A trip that lasts under an hour, including travel time, works best. We used to take Ben and Jack to the cow barns owned and maintained by our town’s university. Or to the library, out for ice cream, to a playground, for a walk on campus… Just one little trip energized me, helped prepare me to face the rest of the day, and also calmed and focused my toddler.

• Pick out a few interesting toys and books just for the car: I found that I could defuse the tantrum that inevitably occurred when my toddler realized that he was about to be strapped into a car seat by strategically offering him a toy or book he didn’t get to see all that often. Make sure to rotate these car toys and books now and then so that they never get boring.

• Prepare for eating out: We bought a Tupperware container that stayed in the car unless and until we were planning to eat in a restaurant with our toddler. In it were always crayons, markers, paper, and tape. Later we added kid scissors to the mix. We also had a set of rubberized mini-vehicles we had purchased from a discount school supply store. These sets are often used as math counters in kindergarten. There were 96 vehicles, 16 cars, trucks, planes, trains, boats, and buses. Each group of 16 contained 4 red, 4 blue, 4 yellow, and 4 green vehicles. You would be amazed at how long Ben and Jack spent sorting and re-sorting these by color or vehicle type. The mini-motors allowed my husband and me to enjoy coffee and dessert on more than one occasion.

• Don’t let them get too hungry: I found that if I fed my toddler five or six smaller meals spaced out across the day, his mood never deteriorated past the point of no return. I am a firm believer that toddlers are not meant to be eating three large meals per day, that in fact three meals are not what their bodies or their brains want.

• Read, read, read: I spent a lot of time reading to both boys as toddlers. I enjoyed it, and I found that their attention spans lengthened if I gradually increased the amount of time I read to them, even by tiny increments (e.g., 30 minutes one day, 35 the next). Amazingly enough, their newfound ability to focus longer and better transferred to other arenas. For example, they did not seem to struggle as much in hopes of being released from their high chairs before having eaten a reasonable amount of food.

• Give them choices: Obviously, a toddler cannot have too much of a say in how his day will go. But wherever and whenever you can, allow him the power of choice. Eating vegetables at lunch might be nonnegotiable, but perhaps your toddler might choose whether he’d rather have carrots or peas. If it doesn’t matter to you, why not let him decide whether he’d like to go to the library before or after lunch? He will feel less helpless if he has even a tiny say in what must feel like a pretty powerless existence. And, feeling less helpless, he’s less likely to become frustrated and end up throwing a tantrum.

Have I forgotten any strategies for improving life with toddlers? If so, let me know. I’d love to hear about the strategies that worked best for you.

[tags]kids, parents, toddlers, tips, life strategies, choices, reading, food, eating[/tags]
Photo graciously provided by the author, through a Creative Commons license, some rights reserved