Setting Boundaries for My 18 Month Old

You are totally headed in the right direction!! And you need to stay strong no matter how much of a fit she throws on the other side of the baby gate!!! While she is seperated with the gate, make sure she has a few of her favorite toys to help keep her occupied as well. Give this whole new way time for her to adjust too. She'll get over it and you'll be able to clean house with out having to keep her seperated from you to do it!!

good luck!
S.

Hi E.-
My daughter is 19 months. From the time she was mobile we have forbide her from being in the kitchen. She was very good at it too. She'd come right to the doorway and stop. We moved when she was 17 months old. Now the house is more of an open room floor plan. It's just too kard to leep her from being in the kitchen because I dont even know where the kitchen begins and ends. So, for safety purposes, when I give the command, she stands on a floor mat that is a safe distance from the stove and she doesnt move until I give her the signal. I am really proud and it works really well.

As far as her playing alone and not being in the same room with you, I asked myself the same question probably two weeks ago. Then suddenly viola! She's doing it. She will play with her toys in the toy area while I do what ever it is that I want to do. It's great. You will love it. All I can tell you is that her time is probably coming also. She'll come to desire more independence. Or she'll be so wrapped up in what she's doing that she wont even realize you've walked away.
good luck!

Sounds like your doing great. Baby gates work well and she will learn a little independence. Have you tried setting aside some toys that only come out when your cleaning that she can safely play with while you clean? When my babies where first starting to get mobile I used a play pen and had playpen toys it made it kind of special. You can think of using a baby gate as a bigger playpen, bring out some fun toys and every once in awhile remind her your there and you are cleaning maybe a toy vacume or dust pan would be fun for her to play with while you are gone or a damp towel and let her "Clean some of her toys" Don't over comfort her b/c then she will think there is a good reason for her to be that upset. Soon it will be a normal part of her day and you'll actually get some cleaning done w/ out her undoing all your work behind you! I also would do this sometimes if I wasnt cleaning just to give her say 20 minutes to learn to paly well by herself. My three yr old will now get lost in her toys for almost an hour by herself and has a great imagination. : )

Well, this isn't a whole solution, but it will cover a segment of the day. Do you have a nice big rug? I used to give my daughter "rug time" at that age. We worked up from about 20 min to 45 min a day, at about the same time every day.

I would put her on the rug with some toys and books, and tell her she needed to play by herself while I got some work done. The first week or so will be training. Just put her back on the rug and sweetly tell her to stay there. You will have to do it over and over again at first but eventually, she will get the point. At first my daughter cried a good bit but then she would get used to the idea and play. Sometimes she would just go right to playing, and sometimes she would cry for a few minutes before she started having a good time. It helped that I did it at the same time every day for the same amount of time so it was an expected part of our routine.

I agree with her about keeping it up. It will take time for her to realize that you are still there. When my son was younger and I did that I would talk to him. That way he knew I was still listening to him but getting my work done at the same time. She is just scared of the unknown. With all things in life, practice, practice, practice. It's just new to her. We all have that little moment of fear when doing new things but we do it anyway. She will be fine. Try singing while you work. I used to sing wheels on the bus and all the kids songs I could remember so he knew what room I was in and knew that I didn't leave him alone, just in the next room.