Looking Back: Toddlers

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• Toddlers & Preschoolers

Experienced advice from moms who've been asked:

By CanadianParents.com Community

Husbands…

Looking back, I would encourage my husband to take a more active role. [Susan]

Second language….

I wish I had taught my kids my mother tongue when they were learning to talk. Now they don't even understand it. [swissmom]

Safety… 

Out of reach isn't really out of reach if it's possible to pile up things to climb on and reach it. For example, putting a stepping stool on top of the closed toilet seat then makes it possible to stand on the sink and reach into the medicine cabinet.Result: one preschooler who attempted to shave, and a sink pulling loose from the wall (though fortunately it did not pull all the way off which would have caused more injury then the shaving did.) [AnnaMarie]

I will never again leave my child for even one second while he is in the bath tub. The other day, I turned my back and he had turned the hot water tap on and it was almost burning him! [Cindy2]

If I could go back, I would tell myself that teaching them young to help clean up may save a LOT of headaches in the future! [angelbear44]

I would have tried to insist on cleaning up toys before starting something else. [Lucasmom]

Looking back I would not have given in so easily to making a separate meal for a certain little boy when he proclaimed" I don't like this!" [ladybug mom]

I would have been more insistant that my son eat vegetables. [Lucasmom]

I wouldn't have been so harsh to have everything perfect. [momsstayhome]

I would tell my daughter that not every answer has to be correct. She is a perfectionist and only in grade. She is getting better but she use to think she had to do her work perfectly so if she thought something was oincorrect she would just not do it for fear of doing it wrong. Now she knows just trying her best is what is expected of her. [Gloria]

I wouldn't have bothered with Mommy and Tot swim classes/dance classes/gymnastics/music classes. Instead I would have spent more time at the park with my daughter, walking, talking, exploring! I would have lost my watch and enjoyed the moment without structure, without a schedule. [beansanga]

I was always too worried about their schedule, and getting things over with. I wish I had just spent more time enjoying my daughter. [Cindy2]

If I had to go back I would probably be less concerned with "what the books said" and go more by instinct. Also I would be more skeptical of all the so called "educational toys" out there! Just because something says it stimulates whatever part of the brain...I think I bought everything and have yet to be convinced that it taught anything he wouldn't have picked up naturally. [Lucasmom]

Trust your instincts!!! Go with the flow... things will all just settle the way they are supposed to. Relax. [Sunshine_Baby]

"When they are little, the minutes sometimes seem like eternity, but the years go by in a minute". I would have given a thousand more hugs, a million more kisses. But as it is, I appreciate everyday and every minute he lets me be his mommy. He is now 5 and I am no longer allowed to kiss in public. [Lucasmom]

I would have lived more for the moment, instead of always looking ahead.

• Janice Whitby | November 27, 2007 at 4:42 pm - §

  I don't think I even change anything at the moment as I am having all the good times with my son as usual. I did not have a tight schedule, just a loose one. He was having a ball to be with the other babies at Healthy Beginnings and at Toddlers' Storytime at the library. If there was times I was so bored and my son was cranky, I go to the drop-in indoor playground where we needed to get out for a change. And I really enjoyed reading the books to him every night before bedtime because he loves the pictures and expressions that makes him laugh. And don't worry, my husband and ds still have a loving bond between them since the day ds was born.

Thank you for your comment.

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