Common Toddler Challenges:

“Into Everything”:

Options:

• Child-proof, child-proof
• Model how to explore fragile things with your help and put away
• Keep less things out, access to art supplies, toys, etc should truly be limited

Your Ideas:

Picky Eating:

Options:

• Rule out a physical cause; check food allergies and sensitivities
• Limit high-fat and high-sugar choices, have many healthy choices
• Look at your child’s food intake over a week, not just one day
• Have a schedule/rhythm for mealtime and snack time  and sit down with your child to eat in an unhurried manner
• Serve smaller portions – your child’s stomach is the size of their fist
• Serve your child’s favorite foods as a side dish to a main meal
• Do not feel ambivalent about your child’s ability to eat what you serve
• Allow an option to have toast or cereal for one night a week
• Try frozen vegetables, such as peas and corn right from the bag or raw veggies with dip if your child is old enough and this is not a choking hazzard
• Let the kids have a vegetable garden – children often will eat what they have grown
• Start calling green veggies “brain food”
• Sneak veggies and fruits into smoothies, or finely grate or chop and mix into foods the child likes
• Fill a muffin tray or ice cube tray with different healthy kinds of snackable foods that the child can pick from
• Model good eating yourself – eat a wide variety of foods!

Your Own Ideas:

Poor Sleeper:

• Rule out physical problems  – many children had reflux when they were younger and are off of medications by the time they are a year or so, do make sure reflux has not reared its head again.  Check www.pager.org for more details regarding gastro-esophageal disease.
• Educate yourself regarding normal sleep behavior – segmented sleep throughout the night was the norm until the Industrial Revolution
• Expect disruptions in sleep around change, stresses, developmental milestones
• Try a more consistent routine during the day calming and soothing techniques for naptime and bedtime
• Try lots of daytime sunlight and dim the lights after sundown; put your house to sleep after dinner
• Limit afternoon over-stimulation, be home and have a consistent routine where things are structured around getting ready toward sleep
• Look at the foods your child eats
• Hug, sleep, hold your child – parent them to sleep
• Co-sleep
• Remember that many toddlers and preschoolers are poised for an early nap and an early (6:30 to 7:30 PM) bedtime – sometimes we just miss the window!
• Watch out for TV and other media exposure
• Many normal, health co-sleeping children do not sleep a 7 to 9 hour stretch until they are 3 or 4 years old.

Nurses all the time:

Options:

• Review normal nursing developmental milestones – 1 and 2 year olds do nurse frequently!
• Check to see if there are stressors, changes, developmental milestones coming into play
• Evaluate at what other times your child gets your complete attention
• Perhaps your child is ready for a more consistent routine, more and varied things to do, more physical activity outside
• Keep a consistent rhythm to the day and night but varied playthings available
• Limit your own phone and computer time as this is when many children want to nurse!  LOL!

Your Own Ideas:

Refuses bath:

Options:

• Use bubble bath, toys
• If she fears soap in her eyes, use swimming goggles or sun visor
• Try bath in the morning instead of at night
• Try a shower
• Get in tub with child
• If child fearful of drain, can drain tub after child out of tub or after child  leaves room

Bites adult:

Options:

• Do not take it personally, do not over-react
• Most common between 18 months and 2 and a half years
• Re-direct behavior
• It is not okay for your child to hurt you!
• Do not bite for biting!

Your Own Ideas:

Bites other child:

Options:

• Watch child closely during playtime but realize children of this age do not need many playdates if any at all – limit the exposure and situations you are putting your child in!
• Give attention to the victim
• Usually biting stops by age 4

Your Own Ideas:

Slaps faces:

Options:

• Re-direct behavior
• Do not hit for hitting
• Model non-aggression

Your Own Ideas:

“Demanding, exacting, easily frustrated”

Options:

• Review normal developmental milestones and behavior
• Check how many choices you are giving and how many words you are using and use LESS
• Try to get in a lot of outside time
• Go back to the basics of rhythm, sleep, warm foods, nourishing simple stories and singing

Your Own Ideas:

Will not get dressed or put on shoes:

Options:

• Plan ahead and use easy to put on clothing, check for tags, seams
• Sing a song, look for body parts, dress by a window
• Dress together
• Put clothes on when you arrive at destination

Your Own Ideas:

Running Away in Public Places :

Options:

• Limit the number of public places you take child
• Bring along a second adult to help if possible

Your Own Ideas:

Temper Tantrums:

• It is OK to feel angry or frustrated; accept the feeling
• Look for the triggers – hungry, tired, thirsty, hot/cold, over-stimulated
• Try to avoid situations that set your child up to fail
• Give YOURSELF a moment to get centered and calm
• Remove yourself and child from scene if possible (if a public place)
• Can get down with child and rub back or head if child will allow,  can just be there
• Once child has calmed down, can nurse, give him a hug, get a snack or drink
• If child is mainly upset and gets wants you near but you cannot touch child, consider doing something with your hands to keep that peaceful, centered energy in the room!  Hold the space for your child!
• Do NOT talk – for most children this just escalates things!
• If child is okay with being picked up, can go outside for a distraction

Your Own Ideas:

Refuses Car Seat

Options:

• Let child have a bag of “car toys” that can be played with as soon as seat belt is buckled
• Have a contest who can get in the fastest
• Be a policman, fireman, truck driver

Your Own Ideas:

Roughness with Pets:

• Model gentle behavior for child with pet
• Child can help do things for pet (but remember, a child younger than 12 does not have the physical and mental capabilities to fully take care of an animal!)
• Separate pet and child

Your Own Ideas:

Aggressive Behavior:

• Try to understand need or trigger beneath the behavior
• Have a rule such as we hit, we sit – Child must sit by you
• Help the children involved get  their needs met  by structuring turns, etc.
• If fighting happens with one friend, you may have to have them stop playing
• together for a time.
• If the hitting involves a new baby or young sibling, your first goal is to protect the baby
• Have a “calm chair” or “calm place” with books, drawing materials where everyone can go together until they are calmed down.
• Your child may need way less playdates, time outside of the home than you think – be very careful and clear that the places you are bringing your child are truly for them and not for you!  If you need times with other mothers, focus on getting bedtime down so you may be able to go out after your child is asleep and have some adult time!

Your Own Ideas:

Separation Anxiety:

• Do not force your child to jump into situations he is nervous about – allow him to watch from the sidelines for awhile, and respect his choices.
• Provide opportunities for your child to take small steps toward independence
• Do not overprotect your child – do not be the hovercraft
• Acknowledge and respect your child’s feelings
• Give your child permission to stay with you – “You can stay here as long as you want to, or you can play and come back for a big hug.”
• Allow the clingyness to run its course – it may be developmentally normal, or it may come out in a time of stress or change
• Give your child something of yours to hold on to and keep close
• Reassure your child by being confident you can walk 10 feet from her and it really is OK – If you say, “Don’t worry, I will be right here if you need me” implies there is something to worry about! Try positive, quiet phrases.
• Again, I truly feel children in the toddler years are NOT meant to be away from their families and that we as a society really push the classes, lessons, independence of this age – Please do be careful the things you are doing are really for your child and not for you and not because “other people are doing it”!

Your Own Ideas:

Tooth Brushing:

Options:

• Start early
• Model good dental habits yourself
• Make it fun – try electric toothbrushes, an egg timer, different kinds of toothpaste
• Use the dentist as the authority on how many times a day to brush the teeth
• Talk to the dentist regarding frequency of cleaning, putting sealants on the teeth
• “Look” for sugar bugs or parts of food from dinner in a playful way, count teeth while brushing

Your Own Ideas:

Resources:

• Ames, Louise Bates. Your One-Year-Old.
• Ames. Louise Bates. Your Two-Year-Old.
• Budd, Linda. Living With the Active Alert Child.
• Bumgarner, Norma Jane. Mothering Your Nursing Toddler.
• Cohen, Lawrence. Playful Parenting.
• Coloroso, Barbara. Kids are Worth It!
• Dettwyler, Katherine. “Sleeping Through the Night.” http://www.kathydettwyler.org
• Flower, Hilary. Adventures in Gentle Discipline.
• Kohn, Alfie. Unconditional Parenting.

As always, take what works for you and your family. Thanks for reading,

Carrie