toddler and mama drama

[friskykitty]

So all toddlers have their moments. Little man has had them so I know other kids do too. Thankfully they are few and far between compared to a year ago. One of the things I have found that is consistently working for us is when he is upset and I am at my wits end, I will tell him "I am going to kiss you all over your face!" or "I am going to tickle your belly!" So when he's gearing up to give me a royal fit, I tell him this and then do it in a very playful manner. It always works to get him to laugh! It immediately changes the tone of whatever was going on. For instance, today we had to hit WalMart. We were out of lots of household items (think TP, Tide, air conditioner filter, etc). He was tired and really wanted to ride the little helicopter ride. I always say no. Today, I let him because he had been awesome in the store and I wanted him to be able to do something fun. I knew it would be hard to get him to leave so I warned him before getting out of the cart to ride that we were riding one ride and then we had to go home to help mama put stuff away. Well you know that could have been a HUGE meltdown at the end of the ride. I told him as he was getting ready to pitch a fit, "I am going to kiss you all over your face!" and did it and he immediately laughed hysterically and got in the cart to go home. It was no big deal at all. I have been using this strategy for about 1 month now and thankfully it has worked wonderfully.

So what tool is working well for your kiddo right now?

[T-man's Mama]

For some reason, my 17 month old generally wakes up crying and fussing every morning. It drives me nuts! I always thought that when you co-sleep, you get the pleasure of waking up to smiling little faces.

Well, I read somewhere, a blog perhaps, of a mom who has one household rule, that you must wake up smiling! So I decided I would try to modify this situation. Every morning as he begins to waken and enter his whining mode, I immediately wake up, roll over to him and repeat how glad I am to see his happy face, how happy I am that he's finally awake and what a great day we are going to have, and I proceed to smother him with kisses! He seems to get a kick out of it, and even better, it seems to halt the whining.