- So Cinderella is a 3 year old. She turned 3 in December, so she is a young 3.
- Cinderella loves books. I think that is a good thing. I love books. Cinderella can sit and look at books for hours by herself. She will let me read books to her for hours.
- Cinderella doesn't take naps anymore. She will maybe take one every 2 weeks or so.
- I need quiet time. It is my only down time in the entire day from when the kids get up (somewhere between 6:00 and 7:00) until they go to bed (between 7:00 and 8:00). I only enforce it for 1 hour, but I need that hour.
- Guy takes a nap during quiet time, so I really need Cinderella to be quiet.
- For quiet time what I have been doing is I put Guy down for a nap in the play yard in the play room, and have Cinderella go in her room with some books and puzzles (which are toys that I think she should be able to play quietly with). She has the option to not have the books and puzzles, and to have her pacifier and take a nap instead. She has been opting for the books and puzzles most of the time lately. I tell her she needs to stay in her room unless she needs to use the potty, or has a messy diaper, until the timer that is on the stove beeps. I set the timer for 1 hour, and when it beeps she can come out.
- A few weeks ago I went into the kids room after quiet time and found that Cinderella had torn one of the pages out of her book. So then I enforced board books only for quiet time. She could look at page books with Mom, but not by herself in her room.
If you can't tell from the picture, she started tearing the pages apart in the board books too.I really don't know what to do for her for quiet time. I don't feel like at the moment I can give her books of any kind. She will just ruin them. But she only has 3 puzzles, and that won't keep her entertained and quiet for an hour.
So my question is... What suggestions do you have, or what do you do for your children, to keep them quiet for quiet time?
And what would you enforce about the books? I don't want to not let her look at books. I think a love of reading is something that is started young. But I don't want to just have her destroy books either. I want her to treat books the right way. Would you put all the books away for a time? Rule out books during quiet time? Or do something different?
5 comments:
As long as Alyssa stays in her room, it's a break for me, so she's allowed to play with anything in there. She can play with her doll house, read books, do puzzles, color, or take a nap (yeah right). She does have her dress up stuff in there and occasionally gets into it but not very often. She also has a small photo album with pictures she looks through.
That's sad about the books. I think we just have to try to teach our children the importance of taking care of belongings and being respectful of books! :)
Maybe you could try having just one day where she can't have books during quiet time, then the next day let her have them but remind her that she might lose the privilege if the problem happens again. It's just hard when they show defiance like that :)
Our children are allowed to play with their stuffed animals in their room.
If you still want to do books... you can get some fabric books...
Or... you can invest in a LeapPad... we have a Little Touch LeapPad... and the pages of the books that go in it will NOT rip (I have seriously tried as hard as I could to rip one, and it wouldn't happen).
Hopefully one of those ideas work!
Julie, I agree with your friends. The girls I babysit don't do that to their books though. They like to color as well. But they aren't aloud to get out of there bed.
Also, I hate to tell you this, but the two year old that I babysit is already potty trained and has been for about 3 months. And she turned two in September. The reason I tell you this is because it will save you alot of time and stress if you get on top of it. We used a potty chart. It had a list of things that she needed to do and if she did them she got to put a sticker beside everything she did. The list had thing like...
Went potty in the toilet, flushed the toilet, washed hands, etc. And once the chart got filled all the way up she got to get to go and pick a BIG surprise out at the store. It worked REALLY well with her and she nows does everything all by herself. Now this may not work on Cinderella, but maybe you could try it. Love you girlie! Take care.
As hard as it may be, have her throw away the books that she has ripped. We made Tyler throw away a couple of his books after he ripped them and he has not done it since. Unfortunately, Jenna is now ripping and coloring in books. Do not let Cinderella color in a room by herself, the walls will be all "pretty" when you go in next. Leap Pads are good and quiet, most of the time, however the "My First Leap Pad" pages do rip. Wooden blocks are great for building with. Let her listen to some nice music on a CD player, that might actually put her to sleep.
I don't know if you are still having this problem, and I do remember that you have already written about throwing her books away, but I have a different opinion to share as well. I understand about keeping things nice and teaching respect, but this is what happened in my house: If you messed something up on purpose, you didn't get a new one, you just had to deal with the one you messed up. Especially when the kids were young, this worked. When they were old enough to care about whether their things were nice or not, they were old enough to know how to treat them with respect, so they could get new things.
Post a Comment