Northern California Babies

toddlerhood is killing me!

What the hell is so horrible about brushing your teeth, putting on clothes, taking your dang vitamins and getting your hair combed? I swear I feel like a horrible person just for trying to maintain her personal hygiene. And forget about trying to clean her ears! 
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Re: toddlerhood is killing me!

  • Oh no sounds like you have power struggle issues. Any ideas on how you can give her some more choices that will still result in getting the hygiene stuff done. Some ideas for teeth brushing a timer she gets to push, two choices in tooth paste and or brushes? For hair choice in hair do dads, comb or brush, good smelling detangler spray. Choice in song while doing tasks?? If you can refocus her on a choice in details it may shift her focus. Btw sorry it sounds rough.
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  • Toddlerhood is tough! Big hugs and hang in there; it does get easier.

    I found choices didn't help much when he wasn't into the activity what did work was making a game out of it - playing dentist by having him shine a flashlight in his mouth, getting the wax monkeys out of his ears (don't ask what that means, I have no idea, just made it up in desperation and it still works :-)), letting him be my hairdresser then I got to brush his hair next. He loves trains so we made things train related - getting dressed was about a lot of tunnels and caves (feet go through the pants tunnel and into the sock caves. He thinks vitamins are candy (we do the gummy vitamins) so I can't help there.

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  • Choices for us have helped a lot but the other thing  that helps is time. Riley isn't good for at least 20 minutes  in the morning, he is just like me in that regard. So we give him some time to get used to the idea of getting dressed, and such then give lots of choices and if a power struggle develops we sit out for 5 minutes and try again then. It isn't a perfect system but it makes mornings more managable for us.
  • Thanks guys I have tried a lot of those things. Choices don't really work much because if she wants to be naked, she says no to every outfit. And she always wants to be naked. I did make a game with toothbrushing and it worked for a time but then it stopped working. It has gotten to the point where it's best just to "get it over with" because nothing really helps. As for the vitamins I was giving her a choice of liquid or chewable (star) and she would take the star and then not put it in her mouth, or take it out after a few seconds and I still had to do the liquid. 

    I will try again with the games. DH got a little irritated with me because he thought I was making such a big deal out of everything with te games that she was walking all over me but I think she just behaves better for him since he is not the main caretaker.  

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