What to Expect the Toddler Years (57 page)

Praise him when he settles down easily. Many toddlers enjoy a sticker chart, and getting gold stars for every night they retire without a fuss. When two rows of gold stars are collected, a reward may be in order.

Don’t lose it. The more imperturbable you stay in the face of repeated trips to your toddler’s room, the fewer trips you’ll ultimately end up making.

“Every time I drop my daughter at the day-care center, she goes to pieces. The teacher says she’s fine all day, and she seems happy enough when I pick her up, but these morning scenes make me dread saying good-bye to her.”

You’re not the only one who dreads saying good-bye. Although your toddler seems much more grown up than she did a few months ago, she may still be torn between independence and dependence. Since she reportedly cheers up once you’ve left and seems fine when you pick her up, she’s probably not unhappy with the teacher or the day-care program. But, since separation anxiety peaks during the second half of the second year, she could be afraid of being deserted by you or distressed at being left out of whatever it is you’re doing without her. This kind of anxiety intensifies as a child becomes mobile; she realizes that not only can you leave her but that she can leave you.

By about age three, a toddler who has had plenty of experience with separation and has had any attendant anxiety met with understanding and support, finds parting easier. Until then, the following may make day-care drop-offs a little less miserable for both of you:

Empathize with your toddler.
Read about separation anxiety on page 20 to understand what she’s going through and to learn how you can deal with this phenomenon in general.

Allow her to tote a security object.
You can’t be with her in day care, but if her day-care program permits it, her favorite teddy, blanket, or another comfort object (see page 112) can be. If such objects from home are not allowed or are relegated to a cubby, a small memento of you (a snapshot, a handkerchief of yours) tucked in her pocket can provide comfort.

Don’t give her any ideas.
Don’t drone on all the way to day care about the impending separation; in fact, don’t even mention it. Even if you dread the worst, pretend you expect smooth sailing. Talk about what she will be doing in day care (if that doesn’t upset her) or when you will pick her up (relate this time to an event in her day, such as “after nap time” or “before dinner”), or chat about the weather, the little dog passing by, or the big green truck stopped at the traffic light.

Don’t feed her misery.
If she sees she’s succeeded in upsetting you or in getting you to feel sorry for her, she will continue to complain. Nothing, after all, succeeds like success. She needs your
support
, but not your sympathy—you’re not leaving her with the Wicked Witch of the West.

Accentuate the positive.
When you arrive, ask the teacher what the group will be doing first thing, and talk up the activity with your toddler. Try to get her involved in it while you’re still there. Ask the teacher, too, what the group will be doing at the end of the day, just before pick-up time. Pass on the information to your child so she will have a way to predict when she will see you again.

Eliminate the negative.
Don’t call her a baby or otherwise berate her, heaping humiliation and guilt on top of the pain she’s feeling. Let her know her feelings are legitimate. Don’t threaten or bribe her, either. Even if these kinds of ploys work (“If you don’t stop crying, you can’t watch
Sesame Street
tonight,” or “If you stop crying, I’ll bring you a cookie when I pick you up”), you’ll be setting an undesirable precedent and teaching her to mask her feelings instead of working them through.

Don’t look back
. If you do, you won’t turn into a pillar of salt like Lot’s wife, but you may dissolve into a puddle of conflicted emotions at the sight of your toddler reaching out to you pathetically, begging you not to go. Which is exactly what she’s hoping for. So make a swift
and sure exit. If there’s a place from which you can watch her without being seen, do so—you’ll almost certainly witness a hasty transition from inconsolable dependent to smiling, independent little girl. If you don’t, be sure to ask your child’s teacher about her adjustment (in private or on the phone), and if you have any doubts about the quality of your child’s day-care situation and how he or she is doing during the day, see page 822. But it’s more likely the teacher will report that your toddler falls in quickly with the group and the activities most days. If not, discuss the problem and possible remedies with her teacher.

Make on-time pick-ups
. Even a few minutes of waiting seems an eternity to a toddler, especially when her groupmates are rapidly clearing out with their parents. If she’s not sure she can count on you to pick her up at the appointed time, she’s not going to feel confident enough to let you leave without a struggle. And when pick-up time comes, don’t meet your daughter with a sour look on your face and a lot of remonstrations about that morning’s scene. Instead, put on a happy-to-see-you face and accompany it with a good attitude, no matter how miserable she made you when you left her in the morning.

For how to deal with older toddlers and separation anxiety at preschool, see page 395.

“Our son won’t sit still for a meal. If we try to buckle him in, he screams. Then he stands up, squirms, and twists in his high chair, usually demanding to be taken out before he’s eaten very much.”

For many relatively new walkers, mealtime is not a high priority. Although infants do much of their exploring by mouth—making eating an exciting learning experience—toddlers prefer exploring on foot—making mealtime an exasperating waste of time. While your toddler may tolerate taking a few bites of food, he almost certainly won’t sit still for them. And yet, eating is necessary to fuel his other activities. To help your child refuel in spite of himself:

Consider a new seating arrangement
. It’s possible that a seat at your table, in his high chair with the tray removed (strapped in, if necessary), or in a booster or Sassy seat, or at his own child-size table might make your toddler feel less restricted and more grown-up.

Stop feeding him
. A toddler’s hunger for independence and new experiences is a lot greater than his hunger for food. Even if he’s not yet skilled at it, letting him feed himself may make him more willing to devote some time to eating (see page 17).

Keep him company.
Even if you’re not dining at the same time, sit down with your toddler while he eats. Make dinner-table conversation, but don’t talk about how little he’s eating or how much he’s squirming. (As if to prove the point that nothing is certain with toddlers, some young toddlers eat better when a grownup isn’t hovering; they find the company distracting. If your child isn’t buckled in, however, you should sit next to him anyway until you’re pretty confident he won’t take a spill.)

Be ready to call it quits.
When your toddler’s had enough, and lets you know this by striving to escape the table or playing with his food, let him go—even if he’s eaten very little. Release him with a matter-of-fact “Oh, you’ve had enough? Okay,” rather than a carping
“You never eat anything!” And don’t follow him to his play area with a forkful of food, pleading, “Just one more bite!” Such pushing of food can not only set up later eating problems, but also give your toddler the idea that “Hey, I don’t have to eat at the table. Mom or Dad will feed me while I play.” If he gets hungry later, make it clear that he’ll have to sit for a snack.

“Since our daughter turned one, mealtimes have been disasters. She won’t eat anything without being entertained—sometimes my husband and I feel like clowns in a circus act. What can we do?”

Stop sending in the clowns—and quickly. A toddler who is cajoled into eating by parental acrobatics, juggling, songs and dance, stand-up comedy routines, and other variety acts soon comes to expect dinner theater at every meal and balks when her food isn’t served up with equal servings of entertainment.

Your goal isn’t to “get” your toddler to eat, but to let her eat. In order to avoid future feeding problems, it’s important to allow her appetite to guide her food consumption. She needs to associate eating with being hungry (“My tummy’s growling, so it must be time for me to eat”), not with being amused (“Daddy’s standing on his head again, so it must be time for me to eat”).

If when you bring down the curtain on your mealtime performances your daughter stages a few melodramas of her own (in the form of tantrums, table banging, hunger striking), resist the temptation to don your tap shoes and funny hats for “one last show.” Stay calm, nonchalant—as if her eating, or not eating, didn’t matter to you in the least (which it shouldn’t, as long as she’s growing normally). Rest assured that once hunger triumphs over stubbornness, your toddler will eat again, even if the show doesn’t go on.

But just because you’re no longer providing your toddler with table-side performances doesn’t mean you should
not be providing her with companionship while she eats. Sitting down with her (even if you’re not eating your meal, join her for a light snack or a beverage), and interacting with her gives her valuable social experiences while making her meals more interesting. Talk with her about anything but how much (or how little) she’s eating: about the trip to the park you took this morning, or the play date that’s scheduled for this afternoon, or the flowers you saw coming up in the garden. Even if the interaction is initially more like a monologue, it will transmit the message that conversations, not circus acts, are the appropriate accompaniments to a meal.

Putting more “fun” in the food you serve your toddler can also satisfy her appetite for entertainment. See page 522 for suggestions on how to do that.

“Whenever we put our daughter in the car seat, she arches her back so violently that it’s almost impossible to buckle her in.”

Your toddler has no choice but to rebel against this double infringement of her right to freedom. Being strapped into a car seat restricts both her independence (which she is trying so hard to establish) and her mobility (which is so new and exciting). Therefore, it’s almost impossible to ensure that a toddler won’t fight buckling up.

Still, toddlers who are not strapped into car seats (or strollers, feeding chairs, and grocery carts for that matter) can get hurt—or worse. The car seat is required by law in all fifty states; it can make the difference between life and death in even a minor accident. So no ifs, ands, or buts—even if you’re just going around the corner, make sure you buckle up your child. (To ensure that your toddler is buckled up correctly and safely, see pages 654–655).