Hey Mamas! Our 7-month-old is starting to soldier crawl her way around and albeit a little late, I'm starting to baby proof again. With our 3-yr-old's toys around, I'm not sure the best way to go about this. We live in a tiny space and use the living room for everything, including the kids play room so plan to keep toys in here (most are tucked away in baskets -- definitely all toys with small pieces). Our toddler is also usually good about cleaning with reminders, but I'd like to clearly establish that he clean up before moving onto the next activity (is this unreasonable? if not, any creative strategies to help this become a habit?). Just thought I'd see if you all might have any good advice or considerations I hadn't thought of before I go at this. Thanks!
I had my then 2.5-yr-old play with his small-piece toys while his 6-mo old sister was napping. The rule was that the small-piece toys don't come out until baby was asleep. Same thing with the baseball bat, which he loved to swing precariously.
Do a clean up song with your oldest after each activity. That way it will become a habit for him to do it on his own.
Who's the toddler? The three year old? I guess since it's not the baby :) He won't clean up by himself for a while. You'll have to keep telling him. My kids were very well trained to clean up, but only did it when I told them. My six year old is finally starting to do it on her own. When youngest ones were choky ages, I just kept small parts off the floor and out of reach, period. Not only from the baby, but so that the bigger kids couldn't play with them, throw them around, and forget stray pieces. I didn't even leave it up to anyone to remember to clean. Those toys were rare, out of reach, and had to be played with WITH ME so I could inspect for pieces after. And I'm a non-baby proofer, but the whole choking age thing freaked me out every time, and I just went mental and made sure nothing small was around.
I saw this method used. It's never to early to learn good habits. The children I knew that were trained under this method received higher grades.
We've only got one child, so this advice isn't coming from personal experience. One strategy is to have the older one play with small toys in the playpen, and have the crawler outside of the playpen. Baby is separated from small part. preschooler doesn't have his creations destroyed. All the small parts are contained, and none can sneak under the sofa.
good luck to you and yours,
F. B.
Yes, make clean up fun with a song or make it into a game...set a timer to see how much he can pick up before the timer goes off. Get him in the habit, just like they do it in preschool and kindergarten, cleaning up before moving to the next project.
And if you can, give him a special place he can play with his toys with small parts, like at the kitchen table, and use a gate or something to block it off from your daughter, especially since baskets in the living room will eventually be gotten into. Get down on the floor and crawl around (as I'm guessing you did with your son) so you can see what she does from her level and get those things out of her reach.
