Help with wandering

Kendrav4

Hello! I am wondering what I can do to help my son learn some boundaries or limit his wandering.

He is 22 months old and wanders with out a purpose all the time. If we are outside his ultimate goal is go get away from me and wander away from the group. He is constantly trying to go in the street and run from me, which makes outside time very hard as I have 2 other kids who require my supervision. I literally have to follow him around every second to prevent him from wandering away. I try getting him to play with balls or other outside toys and he just walks away from them. I certainly understand at 22 months of age he doesn't understand boundaries and kids run off, but I have never seen a kid run/wander off like my DS. Is there anything I can do to help limit the wandering or encourage him to stay by the group?

I've tried saying NO, redirecting him, other methods of entertaining him and nothing works. I feel so silly writing this bc I feel like this is typical 22 month old behavior but his wandering is extreme, even our neighbors and our babysitter have mentioned it to me.

Thanks in advance

Kendrav4

Also, I would like to add that this isn't only outside. If I am getting him dressed I have to hold on to him with one hand bc if I turn my head for one second he's gone....same with bath time, etc

Kendrav4

What you said sounds just like him! When he starts wandering I can't get him to refocus with out physically touching him. We did have to put an alarm on our door to prevent him from sneaking out because he did get out once. (I didn't even know he could open the door and I was changing the laundry) We are probably going to have to fence in our yard and I'll have to make it a point to start planning for situations like you said, its just hard when I have two other kiddos who want to do stuff also. I really hope his wandering doesn't get worse as he gets older

Junebug060609

My DS is a runner. If I give him open space, he'll run as far and as fast as he can. FWIW, it was at its worst from 18-26 months. Somewhere around 26 months I instituted "if you want to walk (out in public), you have to hold my hand". He tries to be sneaky here and there, but overall is pretty good about it. He'll be three this month (he also has asd) and sometimes I can let go of the hand now. I have to be ready to chase him just in case, but usually he behaves.

Kendrav4

Thanks for all of the responses! I will def be getting the baby handle things to put on our doors and probably fence in our yard. I'm going to have to sit down with DH and see what we can do to make everything as safe as possible for him. Its just hard sometimes bc I am terrified to let anyone watch him bc I don't think they will keep a good enough eye on him which prevents me and DH from spending any alone time together or from me letting him go on outings with other family members with out us. Hopefully it improves with age a little bit