What to Expect the Toddler Years (263 page)

Set and enforce limits on behavior.
Whatever ground rules you decide on (no hitting, no biting, no pushing, no grabbing, no playing with someone else’s toy without asking first), make them clear to both your children and enforce them consistently. Eventually they’ll stick. Though you will have to have more stringent rules for the older child, they should nevertheless be fair and achievable. (For tips on discipline and setting limits, see page 47.)

Don’t rush in to mediate . . .
While it’s important to keep an eye on your children in the midst of a dispute, don’t step in unless they are about to (or have already) come to physical blows or damage to property is imminent. It’s best to allow them to work on solving disagreements by themselves, when possible.

. . . but do mediate when necessary.
Challenge your children to come up with a solution or compromise to deal with their conflict. If they can’t seem to reach a resolution by themselves, try helping them reach one. If they’re fighting over a particular object (a toy, the tape recorder, the television remote control), suggest a compromise, such as taking turns with the help of a timer. Praise their achievement if a workable settlement is reached.

Should no amount of parental arbitration lead to a peaceful solution, try to deal with the situation in a very matter-of-fact way by removing the source of conflict. If there’s no object involved, have the children take separate time-outs to cool off.

Don’t judge.
When stepping between dueling siblings, be careful not to assign blame (you probably won’t really know for certain who’s at fault, anyway), which will only increase tension. Except in the most flagrant cases, remain as impartial as possible.

“Catch” them being good.
Don’t wait for a fight to break out to turn your attention your children’s way. Fighting is a tried-and-true way to get parental attention. Pay such negative behavior minimum heed (except when it turns physical). And reinforce positive sibling interactions. When your children play well together—even for a brief period—or cooperate with each other, or share, take notice and offer words of praise. Be alert to and acknowledge acts of cooperation—even if they’re very infrequent.

And take heart. A history of frequent childhood fighting doesn’t seem to jeopardize future friendship between siblings. Fighting siblings have just as good a chance of growing up to be friends as those with a more peaceable childhood. And if they eventually learn how to negotiate their differences verbally, their chances may even be better.

“Our daughter is four, and our son is two-and-a-half. Should our daughter have a later bedtime because she’s older, or should we try to get them both to sleep at the same time?”

For most families, a single bedtime works better when children are so close in age. First of all, it’s a time-saver. Between the bathing, the pajama-ing, the bedtime snacking and drinking, the toothbrushing, the cuddling, the reading, and the actual bedding down, bedtime rituals can be time consuming. While it may take slightly longer to bed down two children than one (especially if they don’t bathe together or don’t enjoy the same stories), it’s definitely faster than bedding down each separately, particularly if two parents are participating. Second, rewarding an older child with the “privilege” of a later bedtime can send the message (to both children) that sleep is a punishment. It can also set the scene for unnecessary sibling rivalry (“She gets to go to bed later and spend more time with Mommy and Daddy—they must love her more”). In addition, putting both children to bed at once allows for more “adult” time in the evenings—a revitalizing tonic that all parents deserve. Finally, preschoolers put in a long day, often without the benefit of a nap; chances are your older daughter needs as much sleep at night as your toddler.

If you do observe a shared bedtime, make sure that each child also has some special time
sans
sibling with you every day; just because their bedtimes are lumped together doesn’t mean the children should be lumped together in all they do.

Parents who often or always have to handle bedtime rituals on their own (either because they’re single, or because their spouse works long hours, travels a lot, and/or isn’t very involved in child care) can easily feel overwhelmed by trying to juggle two children at bedtime. But balanced against the benefit of more time for themselves, these parents usually find the hassles of a joint bedtime are worth it.

If your older child doesn’t seem sleepy at the same time as your younger, consider taking them both through the bed time routine at the same time, then allowing the elder to look at books or play quietly in bed (by the dim light of a clip-on lamp, if the two share the same room), until she’s ready for some shut-eye.

Of course, when the age difference is more than a few years, two bedtimes may be necessary; a nine- or ten-year-old can’t be expected to turn in at the same time as a toddler. But then, a much older child doesn’t generally need as long or as complicated a bedtime ritual as a young one does—and can usually see to much of it (the bath, undressing, toothbrushing) independently.

“Though we try to be careful, we keep finding our sixteen-month-old daughter trying to mouth some small piece from her older brother’s toys; it makes us very nervous.”

If your toddler is the only (or the oldest) child, keeping her away from toys (at home, at least) that are potentially unsafe is as simple as not bringing them into your home. But if your toddler is a younger sibling, childproofing the toy box is a little more complicated. After all, you can’t exactly demand that your older child give up toys that he enjoys just because they’re not appropriate for
your toddler—at least not if you want to avoid mutiny in the playroom.

But you can try to safeguard your toddler by taking the following steps:

Enlist your older child’s help. Explain to him the dangers “big-kid toys” pose to toddlers. Show him what’s small enough to pose a choking threat (you can even teach him how to do a choke-tube test; see page 659), what might be broken off of a big toy and swallowed, what toys might catch his sibling’s curious little fingers. Then make him a member of the “small-parts patrol,” in charge of looking out for unsafe toy parts and keeping them safely stowed. Also teach him to always completely close toy bins and closets after taking toys out or putting them in. Not only will all this help keep your toddler safe, it will make your older child more responsible about caring for his belongings.

Store unsafe toys out of your toddler’s reach. If your toddler can go anywhere your older child can, store potentially dangerous toys where only you can reach them, and have your older child ask when he wants to use them. You can also store some of these toys in containers that are difficult for your toddler to open (your older child can always ask you for help, if necessary). If toys are stored in low cabinets, use child-safe cabinet latches (the kind usually used in kitchens) and show your older child how to open and close them (assuming he can be trusted with the contents of similarly latched kitchen cabinets). A hook-and-eye installed out of your toddler’s reach may slow down access to toys stashed in a closet, but once she’s figured out how to drag a chair or box over to give her height, it’s no longer foolproof. A safety gate to block access to the older child’s room may be helpful—but, again, only until your little one learns how to scale it.

Keep unsafe toys out of sight. Toys stored on high shelves but that are visible to your toddler may tempt her to try scaling those shelves—which can itself be dangerous. Keeping the toys behind closed closet doors or in opaque bins may help discourage interest.

When your older child plays with unsafe toys in the same room your toddler is in, try to get her involved in an engrossing activity. If your older child prefers to play in his room, that’s fine, too. If he’s old enough not to need supervision, he can close the door. If not, putting up a gate can let you keep an eye on what he’s doing while keeping your toddler out.

Be vigilant. No matter how careful everyone in the family is about keeping potentially dangerous toys from your toddler, bite-size game playing pieces are sure to be overlooked under the sofa and tiny building set pieces are certain to be forgotten behind the bed. So always keep a close eye out for any hand-to-mouth actions on the part of your toddler, or for chewing motions when she hasn’t been eating—especially when your older child is playing with tiny toys. And make sure you’re familiar with the emergency treatment of choking incidents (see page 689)—just in case.

“We feel terribly guilty that we don’t seem to pay as much attention to our second child as we did to our first. It doesn’t seem to bother him, but it bothers us a lot.”

It happens in almost every family. The birth of the first child is celebrated with festive parties, heralded with adorable announcements, documented by volumes of snapshots (baby’s first bath, baby’s
second bath, baby’s third bath . . .) and painstakingly kept journals (“Today, Baby had his first bath,” “Today, Baby had his second bath,” “Today, Baby had his third bath . . .”). The birth of the second child—well, it just sort of happens. It’s not that it isn’t eagerly anticipated and joyously received—it’s just that nobody seems to have the time or energy to devote to the fanfare and the record-keeping. And the excitement that comes with newness has worn off.