• 5 Things You Don’t Want Your Toddler Playing With

     

    1. The Lotion

    As soon as my son mastered the alligator death roll, diaper changes became difficult and dangerous.  Attempting to wrestle a diaper onto a wiggling toddler wasn’t just frustrating; it was dangerous because he could roll off of the changing table.  A friend suggested we let him play at rubbing lotion on his stomach by squirting a dime sized amount onto his hands before we started trying to change him.

    It seemed like a great idea. After our first attempt, I should have realized it wasn’t going to work very well.  He tried to eat the lotion.  Not to be deterred, I tried again. He happily rubbed the lotion on his tummy while I changed his diaper. Fabulous!

    So why should I have avoided letting him play with lotion? Because the third time he grabbed the bottle while I was trying to put his diaper on and proceeded to squirt copious amounts of baby lotion all over the both of us.

    1. The Toilet Paper

    No, I didn’t give him toilet paper to play with.  In fact, this little stunt resulted in us putting a baby proof knob on the bathroom door.  I found him in there unrolling the paper with amazing speed! It wasn’t all over the room like they do it in the cartoons; he was shoving it into the toilet and splashing in the sopping wet mess in the toilet bowl.  In case you’re wondering, this all occurred in the few minutes it took me to open the back door for the dog.

    1. The Remote

    We thought it would be cute to give him an old remote that didn’t work anymore when he started asking my husband for the television remote. However, the diversion didn’t work for very long and soon we were handing over the brand new satellite remote control.

    We were slow to learn our lesson on this one.  We thought it was pretty funny when he found the pause button on our DVR and even more amusing when he began recording hundreds of episodes of Peppa Pig and Sesame Street.

    What led us to change our minds and finally take back the remote? Having to purchase a new one and reprogram the television and all our media devices after he lobbed it across the room during a tantrum.  The remote broke into pieces and while my husband was excited about our toddler’s “strong arm,” he was less than thrilled about living without a remote for a few days.

    1. My Pearls

    I saw it on Pinterest so it had to be a great idea right?  I gave him a string of pearls I had worn on my wedding day to hold for a photo.  He was obsessed with them and I was sure it would be a cute and memorable photo.

    Apparently his grip is just as strong as his right arm, because he quickly broke my necklace.  The pearls went everywhere! We were picking up pearls for weeks!

    Not only did I lose an expensive and sentimental piece of jewelry, my son could have choked on any one of those pearls and I never would have forgiven myself. No cute photo is worth that.

    1. The Camera

    Once, in an effort to keep him placid in public, I let him hold my Nikon digital camera. He loves looking at the pictures of himself so I was counting on the camera to keep him quiet and well behaved.  What I wasn’t counting on was his ability to delete hundreds of baby photos in a matter of minutes.  I was depressed about that one for days!

    We’ve been lucky, and for the most part very careful. But we had to learn the hard way that in our house, these things are just off limits to our two year old. What about you? What is it that you just can’t let your toddler play with?

    Written by: Sara Parise



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