S/O Maniac babies...

ababymaybe

Anyone have any tips or strategies that work well for handling their, um "spirited" child? I can identify with what everyone was saying in the thread below... It's exhausting.

My tip: I wedged all of the books into our bookcase tightly so that he can't get them out. Lol.

LCass

I totally get that it's frustrating to keep cleaning up after your kid.  Lily also loves to pull off every single book and it makes a huge mess.  We have her bookcase in a corner of the living room, so at least the mess is mostly contained to that corner.

I would hesitate to make it so that LO can't get the books off the shelf.  You want books to be fun and exciting to him, not out of reach and that he gets in trouble for touching.  We only have board books out, she has to be supervised with all other books.

LatteLady5

LCass:

I totally get that it's frustrating to keep cleaning up after your kid.  Lily also loves to pull off every single book and it makes a huge mess.  We have her bookcase in a corner of the living room, so at least the mess is mostly contained to that corner.

I would hesitate to make it so that LO can't get the books off the shelf.  You want books to be fun and exciting to him, not out of reach and that he gets in trouble for touching.  We only have board books out, she has to be supervised with all other books.

This. N LOVES pulling every book of of the shelf, making a big pile to sit on and then picking a book to "read." I don't bother cleaning that kind of stuff up until after she's gone to bed or if we're having company. Kids make messes, that's just how they learn. We are also working on "clean up" and she'll throw toys back into the bins. She's far from neat and tidy but I think we're moving in the right direction.

LCass

LatteLady5:

We are also working on "clean up" and she'll throw toys back into the bins. She's far from neat and tidy but I think we're moving in the right direction.

Ooh, good point.  Lily's pretty good about putting lots of things back where she got them, but she's only just starting to do it with books.  I can usually get her to put one book back on the shelf each day (or at least to try to; half the time she misses and it ends up on the floor, but the effort was there).

jonnygurl76

I only allow so many toys out at a time and we have to clean up messes before we start new toys. My house is never trashed, it just gets messy. I only keep board books out, all the rest of the books and toys are kept in our dining room behind baby gates.

ababymaybe

Oh, he can get HIS books those are a free for all in the living room and his room. But we have hundreds of other books I may have... A book buying 'problem' and he will rip them to shreds if he gets ahold of them!

I also do the toy rotation, in addition to helping mess it helps prevent him from getting tired of things.

LCass

ababymaybe:

Oh, he can get HIS books those are a free for all in the living room and his room. But we have hundreds of other books I may have... A book buying 'problem' and he will rip them to shreds if he gets ahold of them! I also do the toy rotation, in addition to helping mess it helps prevent him from getting tired of things.

Ah, gotcha!  Yeah, we have all other books out of reach, too.