Child care expert Nanny Carrie shares from her bottomless bag of tips and tricks every two weeks here in The Mabelhood. Want advice from a professional nanny? Send your child related questions to blog@mabel.ca
Q – I feel like I’m always nagging at my toddler and saying “NO” all the time. Anything I can do to avoid feeling like a nag?
If you’re finding yourself in a vicious cycle of a toddler who is getting into mischief every 2 minutes, they’re often bored and trying to get your attention to help them find something to do. Try not to see it as a deliberate ploy to drive mama crazy. When adults are bored, we doodle on paper, surf the internet, check for split ends, etc. Your toddler is probably just looking for a way to entertain himself.
There are two ways to manage the situation and keep the “no’s” to a minimum. You’ll probably find you need to use both depending on the situation.
1) Set them up for success. It’s not fair to take a 2 year old into a doctor’s office and expect him to quietly read a magazine for 45 minutes. If you don’t provide something for him to do, he’s going to make his own fun.
For the little guys: Bring special toys, colouring (stickers are great because they’re less messy), and snacks are always a hit. Go for a low maintenance snack like bite-size crackers or cereal puffs. (Scraping muffin crumbs out of the carpet does not make a mama’s life easier!) Try to create an environment so that their activity is something positive and then be sure to load up on the praise for doing a good job.
For bigger kids: Save the electronics for special occasions. You’ll be surprised how quickly a child can grow to love waiting rooms if it means they get to bust out the video games! For the less technologically inclined, comic books and magazines for kids are a good bet. (Steer clear of toys with small pieces and anything that will have you scrambling under chairs for escaped dinky cars and Legos).
2) Cut your losses. Sometimes you need to get something done and you just can’t arrange an activity to keep your little one out of trouble. So let him wreak a bit of havoc (obviously ensuring it’s not dangerous or too destructive). In my house, sometimes that means letting my little guy dust the bathroom cupboard with my makeup brushes or empty ice cube trays into the sink. They’re not the best activities but it means I can keep the negativity to a minimum while he is safely occupied.
When you do find you need to redirect your toddler, try using phrases like “uh uh uh” or “don’t touch please” rather than “no.” You can use these phrases for minor misbehaviours and save the firm “no’s” for occasions when they really count (running across the street, turning the dials on the stove etc.) and you can follow through with your request. Then as they get older you can call out “no” with one hand on the phone and one hand making lasagna and they’ll know you still mean business!
Nanny Carrie’s Tip: Keep a ‘busy bag’ filled with fun activities in your car/purse/diaper bag so you’ll always be prepared with something cool to occupy your little one whenever an unforeseen errand/appointment crops up.
Last week I was in the carpool line picking up my oldest son. I realized once I got there that I hadn’t brought my bag. I just put the younger kids in the car and headed off to school. My kids are generally quiet while we are in line and if I am lucky they even fall asleep. I should revel in the quiet time right? Nope, not me. My mind started to run wild with the things I had to do and I had NOTHING to write them down on. Ideas popped up left and right and I knew I wouldn’t remember them when I got home. I think as mothers we are used to so much noise throughout the day that when things are finally quiet our brain tries to catch up on all of our thoughts for the day – all at once!
Anytime I know I will have a wait… carpool, doctor’s office, etc., I carry a couple of things with me. I always have my notebook and feel lost without it. It is good practice to get those thoughts out when you have them, otherwise you have all of this stuff bottled up that will come out sometime. For me it is when my head hits the pillow at night. Restless sleep for a mother of three is never a good thing.
I also carry with me a magazine I want to read and any mail I need to catch up on. You might want to have a couple of note cards on hand as well so you can pen a letter to someone you are thinking about.
Taking these spurts of time to do something productive will help keep things in balance and free your mind of clutter.
Mabel’s Labels is pleased to announce the ten finalists of our “Wish You Were Here” Contest. We came up with the idea for this contest after reading and hearing so many stories about bloggers who were unable to attend the BlogHer ’09 conference last week in Chicago.
We asked BlogHer ’09 attendees who they wished could have been there with them at the event. The winner will receive an all expenses paid trip to for BlogHer ’10 in New York City and so will the blogger they wished was there.
Thank you to everyone who recorded a video and shared it with us. It was a blast meeting everyone and watching your fantastic entries. Here are the top ten finalists!
I’m never quite sure what to do about Father’s Day. Is it a time when daddy-o is supposed to spend the whole day bonding with his kid crew, or is it a day he should get a break from them?
After pondering the question for about five seconds, I decided to go with the bonding. Fact is, he spends a lot of time at work so doesn’t exactly need a ‘break’ from the kids. As such, I lined up a few dad and kid activities for the morning.
Breakfast in bed was not on the agenda, so the first activity was to send him off to his favourite greasy spoon with the three biggies followed by a trip to the golf store where he cashed in a gift certificate that was two-years-old. The rest of the day mostly involved daddy-o swimming in the backyard pool with the gang. Father’s Day is now wrapped up for another year.
Around here I feel that Mother’s Day should be treated a little differently to Father’s Day because of the difference in our parenting roles. The one fundamental difference is that I’m around the kiddos a helluva a lot and he is not. I need more bonding time with the kids about as much as I need a hole in the head. I like to celebrate Mother’s Day by having a few moments to myself – nothing drastic, maybe a sleep in until 8:00am and an hour in the afternoon. I don’t think that is too much to ask. Call it a double standard, but I don’t need to be surrounded by my peeps on my day, but daddy-o does on his day.
Years ago, on my second mother’s day, life was hectic as I was juggling Law School and two babies. I’ll never forget waking up on the morning on that Mother’s Day and daddy-o saying “I’m just going out for a couple of hours to do some Mother’s Day shopping”. Gulp. Do ya think maybe that should have been done during the week? My idea of Mother’s Day didn’t involve him going on a shopping excursion.
The rage that consumed me at the time makes it difficult to recollect or re-tell the story. All I know is that he gently threw me his wallet and car keys, grabbed the children and gently backed out of the room muttering phrases like “don’t rush back…..go for a coffee too….visit friends….buy whatever you like.” Again, the red I was seeing blurred my vision so this is just a vague recollection.
So here’s to every daddy-o out there. I hope the mamas spent the day doing exactly what I did – showing their great appreciation of you by providing you with opportunity to spend time with your lovely children!
A week of battling illness has provided the opportunity to make some observations:
1) Very strange and seemingly unconnected symptoms occur as the result of pregnancy. In my case, a simple head cold morphed into a serious sinus infection. Apparently pregnancy and sinuses are connected. This is strange to me because last I checked my sinuses are really far away from my uterus. My sinus infection made me feel like someone took me out back and beat the living daylights out of me. I was shocked when the mirror didn’t reflect how I was feeling – I fully expected to see two black eyes, bruised cheeks, missing teeth and bleeding ears. And I don’t know who let the little guy with the knife into my head, but I didn’t appreciate him stabbing my brain every time I moved or coughed. So, pregnancy means you get sinus infections which makes about as much sense as pregnancy causing carpal tunnel syndrome and skin tags. It’s just plain weird.
2) Drugs for pregnant women just don’t cut it. We need those big pharmaceutical companies to hire a bunch of pregnant mamas. My Doc did prescribe some meds but they were crappy and slow acting. Pregnant women are not allowed all the good drugs. When I felt even worse the next day, I left my Doc a voicemail requesting an immediate house call for a head amputation. My Doc opted for an alternative plan and had the pharmacy deliver more crappy and slow acting drugs.
3) My sick bed transforms into a social hub of action. Why when daddy-o is sick he can disappear to bed, shut the door and have two days of uninterrupted rest? I look around my sick bed and there is a sea of small bodies surrounding me at all times. At one feverish moment I thought it was the 1960s and I was trapped in John and Yoko’s love bed. I expected the kids to break out into rounds of “Give Peace A Chance”.
4) I hear so much about Thursday night TV and from my sick bed this week I experienced it for the first time. For all you Greys fans out there, I have news for you – there is something worth turning the channel for. I felt sick enough without having to watch Meredith moping around. There’s a show called “30 Rock” that is so funny I didn’t mind that my brain felt like it was going to explode with every chuckle.
During sinus hell week, I also had my birthday. All I really wanted for my birthday was a beautifully wrapped bottle of pain killers to be washed down with a lovely glass of wine. Is that too much to ask? Ah well, there’s always next year!
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