[lnitti]

What do you do for your older child when so many of the toys and activities available contain small pieces (choking hazards) and you have a little 1 year old around too?

I don't want to have to keep them separated. They play together alot. They are very much monkey see monkey do (in both directions)

 

[Dena]

I have been dealing with this too. We have a couple of things that have teeny pieces (ala Playmobile) and a few things that the one year old would just plain wreck if she got her hands on them - puzzles, board games, etc.

We have explained to dd1 which toys dd2 can't be around because they are not safe around her or she is not safe around them. Dd1 has been really great about keeping things out of dd2's grasp when she knows they are not safe toys for her. But then, she likes to be in charge anyway.

So, what the kids do is play with things that are ok for both of them, and then sometimes dd1 has her own playtime with a puzzle or a game, say at the kitchen table or in her room, and we keep dd2 otherwise occupied. And dd1 will play with her "big girl" stuff when dd2 naps, too. All in all, I think they get plenty of playtime together, and dd1 likes having stuff that is all hers and baby sister can't play with.

As for physical locations, stuff that dd2 can't be into is either in bins in the family room that dd2 isn't strong enough to pull out or is in dd1's room.

HTH!

 

[LynnS6]

We took away the really tiny things (Playmobil "food") and let him play with the slightly larger stuff.

We taught dd to 'trade' for something cool really early.

And I thanked our lucky stars that ds was not into legos!

 

[leafwood]

We actually started talking with dd before ds was born about safe toys for babies. We made a point to create a place in her room on a shelf that she could reach (and he cant, even at almost 1y) where she can keep her smaller things. I bagged up what I could and got some pencil cases for other items. Dd has learned that if she wants to play with those items she has to talk to dh or myslef and we will help her find a place to play without ds interrupting her. Sometimes this does disrupt that playtime, but I want her to feel like she has space of her own (meanign that one of us holds ds or wrangles him in another area of the house while she does her beading or small puzzles, etc.).

May not be ideal, but it has worked so far.

That being said, I am now much more careful about what I buy for dd. For Christmas I made a point to avoid toys/games with a ton of small pieces. A lot of books, dress up, and one nice box of craft things that will be kept on her special shelf.

 

[reezley]

We used to have a baby-gated (play-yard type gate) area that was ds1's area for the big-kid stuff. It worked for a while, and then ds2 got too interested in what was in there. Then we just had a rule that ds1 could play with the small-piece stuff when ds2 wasn't around - either napping or with the other parent in another room. We have very few things though that weren't okay for the baby too. (Now ds2 is old enough to have the small pieces around if we're supervising.)