So much harder....but thank you

[Tanyia]

I grew up in a pretty punitive house. I'm trying to be a Grace filled momma with dd (10mths). It's REALLY hard though. I appreciate all you ladies posting your stories. Sometimes it helps to come and read them and see that you all have your difficulties as well. DD is walking and has been for the last 2 mths. Today she was in to EVERYTHING. I know she's teething and was extra tried this afternoon, but she really went from one thing that she's not supposed to be in, to the next (garbage, chewing on the remote, etc). I tried to keep the same tone to my no's each and every time but that got harder as the evening wore on. :eek She would collapse in a heap of tears each time I removed whatever she wasn't supposed to have or tried to move her some where there were things she could play with. She seems to understand that when I say no, she shouldn't touch it, but will touch it and look at me. I know that's age appropriate, and tell her that it looks like she needs help and go remove her from the object...am I doing this right? I'm so lost. TIA!.

[ArmsOfLove]

You're doing fine :hug As much as possible child proof--the more safe her environment is to explore and the more yeses she encounters the better :tu And then you can save your energy for the absolute no's :tu The other day I was in bed with the babies on me and dd brought me a picture she'd made for me. ds3 wanted to see it so I let him hold it and when he went to put it into his mouth I gently took it and said, "Unh unh. Not for eating." or whatever and he began soulfully sobbing :shifty I handed him the picture and he got excited, took it away and he put his head down and sobbed :cry We did that about 4 times, including once for daddy, and then distracted him with something else :P Adjusted age he's about 10 months :grin

Even when they understand and get something they still don't necessarily have the self control to do it, at least not consistently, so make it as easy on yourself at this stage as you want to :D

[Radosny Matka]

:giggle The only reason I am :giggle is because I am right there with you. It can be so exhausting chasing an 11 month old. Really, there isn't much he can get into at my house, but we just got back from a trip to visit family, and well...their houses are not babyproofed. :yawn

Can I make a suggestion? Try and limit the number of no's. Saying no is fine now and then. This will be more important as your baby gets older. The way a child's mind works is that they just don't hear the "no." If you say, "no remote." They hear "blah remote." or "don't run" they here "do run." With my son, I say things like, "icky garbage" "remotes are for the tv," etc. our big one here is "the computer is not a toy. go this way" (as I move him away from the computer and find him a toy) :hug

[raisa]

Just chiming in -- my DS is 14 months. One thing that has helped me is to really think why to say "no" to something instead of just automatically prohibiting it. I will let him have some supervised play with the phone, forks, table knives (not sharp enough to cut unless you know how to use them), pens, and all sorts of things my mom would say no too, as long as he's supervised and not walking with them in his mouth or something dangerous. I also don't mind if he puts the remote or something in his mouth, unless he could ruin it or choke. Usually he just wants to explore and move on so I try to avoid power struggles on things that aren't as important to me, and save my energy for protecting my coffee cup and the cat.

I think the "touch it and look at you" is part of the learning process. At this age they don't know enough about time and context to understand that "don't touch the coffee cup" means "don't touch it when Daddy's holding it" and "don't touch it in the kitchen" and "don't touch it when it's cold" and "don't touch it five minutes from now." I think they are earnestly checking to see if the standard is still the same each time.

Also this might sound a little academic, but I think phrase "you shouldn't do that" is actually a sophisticated abstract concept. "We shouldn't" can really mean "there's a rule against it" or "something bad will happen" or "mommy doesn't want that." I don't think toddlers consistently understand and apply rules, right and wrong (or even "that's a no-no") the same way we do. They think in more simple concepts like "stop," "danger," "owie," or "mommy." Sometimes they might behave along the same lines as if they know something's wrong, but it's not the same thing as us doing something we know is wrong.

[Amber]

:hug This is a both a fun and frustrating age that your dd is at. With our ds we ended up doing quite a bit of baby proofing. I found that it was so much easier to just move the things that I didn't want him to get into than to be constanly keeping him away from them. We ended up gating off our living room so that he couldn't get too far or into to much trouble. To help with his exploring we gave him is own remote (that I picked up at a garage sale), his own cordless phone etc...and we would keep the real one's out of reach (of course he recently had a growth spurt and can now reach the remotes :doh)

I tried to save "no" for times when I really needed it instead I would tell him what I wanted him to do. So when he would grab the floor lamp and shake it I would tell him "hands off" then pick him up so he could look at the lamp. This came in really handy over Thanksgiving when ds when to touch my ILs hot wood stove and I was able to say "No!" not yelling, but sharply and he stopped, giving me enough time to get to him and show him the hot stove and prevent any burns.