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You made it through the infant stage. Your little baby is growing, and youâre hopefully getting more sleep. But now youâre on to the toddler stage, and you may find yourself wondering how to transition to this phase. Are you doing the right thing? Are you setting enough boundaries? Most importantly, are you showing your child enough love, support, and affection? If youâre worried about taking on this next stage of parenting, weâve listed a few important tips for parenting a toddler below. Donât worryâyouâre more than capable!
This tip should last throughout your relationship with your child. Close parent-child relationships start with spending a lot of quality time together. An important aspect of this is to not think too hard about itâjust do it! Even though youâre probably exhausted from caring for your toddler, the more time you spend with them, the more affection theyâll see from you.
To help prevent or at least lessen those inevitable tantrums, work on understanding and learning your childâs limits. A lot of the time, toddlers have tantrums because they donât understand what youâre asking of them. This frustrates them, resulting in temper flares. If youâre trying something new or a bit difficult, take it slow and explain everything thoroughly.
This is vital for parents to remember: sometimes your toddler will break the rules. Thatâs okay! Whatâs most important is how you react to that. Encourage your child to cooperate by teaching them that there are consequences for âbadâ behavior. Make sure to discourage disobedience by withholding privileges or setting time-outs. Set specific consequences to certain actionsâfor example, if they donât pick up their toys, then youâll take away the toys for a day. Whatever consequences you choose to enforce, make sure to do so consistently.
Get this started as soon as possible. Toddlers are rarely aware that things they may find fun (biting, pulling, grabbing toys from children) can hurt somebody else. If the situation is severe enough, you can partner the consequences we talked about above with some empathy-focused statements: âWhen you bite or pull at people, it hurts them,â or âWhen you take someone elseâs toys, they feel sad.â If the situation isnât that severe, just stick with the empathyâit helps children realize how their behavior directly affects others.
Four Important Tips for Parenting a Toddler