Toddler Time Ideas

If you have followed me for a while you probably know I have a toddler.  At the time I am writing this he is a pretty new 2 year old!  I have never really found all the trepidation about two year olds to be true.  I love this stage!  My little guy is learning so much each day and the ways I get to see his brain learning and exploring are amazing.  Since he is my baby, I know this season will not last forever.  With this truth in my mind, one of my goals this year is to have at least 15 minutes of undivided toddler time with him.  And let me tell you fifteen minutes of quality, phone down, my eyes on you, time makes such a difference!

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Read, Read, and Read again.

I know lots of moms who struggle to “play” with their kids.  And to be honest, unstructured play isn’t always my thing either.  But having a few categories of activities to direct my toddler in has helped make this time enjoyable for both of us.

We usually start our toddler time with reading.  Up until a few months ago, my son had zero interest in sitting long enough to listen to a book.  But it is like a switch flipped and he is loving reading together now!  Reading is SO good for your baby’s brain and language development!  If your child is hesitant to sit and listen, it’s okay to keep reading while they walk around too!  We also found some books that had a few of my sons favorite characters in them and they were the gateway to loving all kinds of books!  Here are a few of our very favorites!

The Monster At the End of This Book (bonus points if you try to make your voice sound like Grover)

 Where Do Diggers Sleep At Night

Let’s Dance Little Pookie

Find the Duck

On the Farm

 Song Time

I used to be a music teacher, so of course we love to sing in our house.  But music and nursery rhymes are an area that so many kids just aren’t exposed to any more!  Don’t let any insecurities you have about your voice keep you from singing with your child.  Trust me, they do not care!  They just want to dance, and sing and play with YOU!!

Songs and nursery rhymes are again so helpful for our toddlers language development.  They are worth whatever silliness you may feel.  There are so many nursery rhymes and songs you can sing together!  Most toddlers will gravitate to songs with movements or actions in them.  But the good news is even if a song doesn’t have traditional actions, you can make some up!  My son and I sang Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star this week and I just make up simple actions for us to do together.  I have listed a few of our favorite songs below.  You can search for videos of these songs if you are not familiar, but I would caution you to not replace singing together the two of you for playing the video for them.  Toddler time won’t have the same impact if it isn’t really just interactions between the two of you. 

The Itsy Bitsy Spider 

The Wheels on the Bus

Little Bunny Foo Foo

Head and Shoulders

If Your Happy and You Know It

Play Time

I know.  This is the phrase some of you have been dreading!  Let me give you an idea to help.  What I have been doing with my toddler is picking one toy for us to play with together.  We have LOTS of toddler toys because my son is the fourth child.  But I noticed, some things he wasn’t playing with much.  I realized he didn’t even know how to play with some of these toys!

So each day, I pick one toy and we play with it together.  One day we made towers with stacking blocks and knocked them over and he now does this on his own every day!  We have done puzzles and cars and little people play sets.  And remember this whole time is only 15 minutes!  Set your timer and you bet you will be surprised how quickly the time goes when you start with a plan!  

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