What to Expect the Toddler Years (109 page)

Know your limits, and let her know them, too. Short periods of your wholehearted participation are more rewarding to your toddler than long periods of your grudging attention. If you start squirming and yawning after fifteen minutes of “teddy-bear hospital” or “mommy cat–baby cat,” call it quits before resentment kicks in. But give her fair warn-ing—tell her, “We’ll take care of just two more sick teddies and then we’re going to read a story,” or “The mommy cat and the baby cat can have just one more snuggle, and then the mommy cat will have to start dinner.”

Pick and choose your games. Some parents get antsy playing make-believe, but love to do science experiments. Some love to read but have little patience for racing cars. Some enjoy doing puzzles but are bored silly by block-building. When your toddler wants to play but hasn’t got a game in mind herself, suggest the kinds of things you enjoy doing. Your toddler will probably be happy to go along most of the time.

Try some parallel play. Sometimes a parent’s physical presence is enough to satisfy a toddler hungry for a partner in play. So when you can’t play with your toddler, “play” alongside her. Tell her that you’re going to play your game (balancing the checkbook, answering some letters) next to her on the floor while she plays hers. That way, you’ll be there when she needs someone to taste her “soup” or admire her “baby,” but you won’t have to be a full-time player in her make-believe productions.

Turn the tables. Once in a while, invite your toddler to play with you. Give her a pair of work gloves, a plastic trowel, and a pile of dirt to weed and cultivate while you do some serious gardening alongside her; a pile of fabric scraps to sort through while you do some sewing; a stack of old magazines to flip through while you read the newspaper; an exercise routine of her own to do while you do yours. She may be delighted to participate in your games of choice—or she may be bored. After all, her tea parties aren’t always your cup of tea, either.

The bowlegged one-year-old suddenly becomes a knock-kneed two-year-old. And it’s perfectly normal.

“Our daughter was very bow-legged when she started to walk a year ago; now suddenly, she seems knock-kneed. What’s going on?”

Your toddler is right on schedule: bow-legged at one year, knock-kneed at two. It’s not until somewhere between seven and ten that you can expect that her legs will appear truly straight.

In the meantime, there’s nothing to worry about or to do. Special shoes, orthotic supports, and exercises not only won’t help, they could be harmful.

If only one leg is affected, or if the curvature is exaggerated, or if your child is way below normal height on the growth charts, discuss this with her doctor. Consultation with an orthopedic specialist may be called for. (If growth appears to be a problem, a visit to a specialist in metabolic disorders may be appropriate.)

“Lately, every time we turn our backs, our toddler sets about destroying something. He tears up magazines, crayons on the walls, pulls the knobs off the television. Our house is starting to look like a tornado hit it.”

In other words, your house is starting to look like a home occupied by a toddler. But though toddlers are certainly frequently destructive, their behavior is not usually intentional. Toddlers tear, break, or otherwise destroy for a variety of reasons: frustration (“I can’t get this to do what I want, so I’ll toss it against the wall”); poor coordination (“I think I’ll put my dish in the dishwasher like the grown-ups do.” Crash!); curiosity (“What will happen if I open up the TV remote and take out the insides?”); lack of sophistication (“My juice cup never breaks when I drop it on the floor; no harm in trying it with Daddy’s coffee cup”). Occasionally, of course, a toddler’s destructiveness is deliberate (“I’m so mad at them for not letting me watch TV, I’m going to knock all the books off the coffee table” or “They spend so much time with that baby that I’m going to throw this truck right across the room”).

At times you may be able to determine what motivated your toddler’s destructive behavior. Other times, his motivation will remain a mystery. Either way, it’s important to let him know that destroying things isn’t acceptable, and that, whatever his reason, you don’t want him to do it again. Don’t scold or punish, especially if he destroyed something unwittingly, but let him know that you’d like him to try to be more careful next time, and why (“Coffee cups can break into sharp pieces when you drop them” or “When you take apart the remote control, it doesn’t work anymore”). And
have your child help repair the damage when possible (wipe up spills, tape a page back into a torn book, scrub crayon marks off the wall). If frustration was the cause of his destructiveness, give him constructive suggestions for dealing with it (“If you pile the blocks this way, they don’t fall over”). If anger was the trigger, remind him of other ways to release his emotions (see page 333). If it was just the junior scientist at work again, provide plenty of opportunities for safe and acceptable experimentation (see page 241) and manipulation (toys to put together and take apart, for example).

If your child continues his destructive behavior despite your intervention, and the destruction seems intentional, think about why. Is he frequently frustrated or angered by too many restrictions or by expectations that exceed his capabilities? Is he going through a difficult period or a tricky transition right now? Does he need additional love and support? Are there family tensions? Could there be a problem in his life you aren’t aware of that is causing him distress (an inattentive or cold baby-sitter, unexpressed fears)? If addressing such issues does not lessen intentionally destructive behavior, discuss the problem with his doctor.

“I kept my daughter away from sugar and white flour for the first two years of her life, but now that she’s around other children more, it’s become next to impossible to keep her eating habits ‘pure.’”

Alas, the days of gastronomic innocence—when Oreos, M & M’s, and frosted cupcakes neither crossed your child’s mind nor passed her lips—are gone and gone for good.

Of course, you could protect her nutritional virtue by locking her up in an ivory tower stocked only with healthy foods. But allow her to live in the real world—among the diet-sabotaging influences of peers, television commercials, and gimmicky food packaging—and temptation will never be far away, ever beckoning her to stray from the whole-grain and sucrose-free.

In the face of such temptation, making sure your toddler eats right will undoubtedly be a struggle. But with the solid foundation you’ve already laid, and the following tips, it’s a struggle from which good nutrition can ultimately emerge triumphant.

Make home a nutritional haven. You may not always be able to oversee your child’s eating habits when she’s out, but you can when she’s at home. By keeping your home true to The Toddler Diet tradition (see
Chapter Eighteen
), free—or mostly free—of foods made with white flour, excess fat, sugar, and artificial colors, chemicals, and other nutritionally unworthy ingredients, your toddler will have no choice but to eat right.

Make eating well tempting. If your answer to candy and potato chips is carrot sticks, your toddler will come to associate good nutrition with taste-bud tedium. Respond instead with treats that are both nutritious
and
delicious, such as those beginning on page 832. A toddler whose taste buds haven’t been tainted will find them every bit as appealing as the more traditional, empty-calorie treats.