Benny has this fascination for spitting liquids out of his mouth. As it turns out, its usually milk. On good days it'll be water. There is a part of the dining room floor that I can assure you is always clean. Why? Because I clean it up practically every day and sometimes twice a day.
After he spits the milk onto his tray he then swishes it around with his hands and makes it splash all over the floor and sometimes even the wall. It usually lands on the coffee table in the living room, too.
After I finished my last post I went downstairs to get him out of his chair. I looked at him and was so pleased that he had finished his food and hadn't made a mess. He didn't even have milk dribble over his shirt! I was proud of him at that moment. I walked to the kitchen to get a washcloth to clean him up (he had had yogurt and that was a bit messy on his face). All I did was grab the washcloth, rinse it in warm water and walk back into the living room and there was milk EVERYWHERE!
I'm so frustrated with this. It happens so often. It even happens if we're in the room with him. He calls it spit-up...I think he might do it because he sees Ezra spit up his milk and we don't say anything to Ezra. I don't know, though. Maybe he's just a little turd....lol
I don't know how to stop this behavior. We go over it time and time again. We explain that we don't spit and it just doesn't seem to work.
Today however, I tried something different. I immediately took him out of his chair and stood him in front of the stairs for a time-out while I cleaned up the milk. I then gave him the rag and told him to go clean up his mess (after I had done most of it). He sat there on the floor in just his diaper and scrubbed a few times. Poor little guy, I wanted to pick him up and tell him that I would always clean up his messes...lol...I'm such a softy. But I didn't! I moved him over to the middle of the "mess" and told him to clean it up some more there, too. At that point he looked up at me and smiled; it seemed he was starting to enjoy it. lol So I ended it there, because this wasn't going to turn into a game.
I hope this tactic will work. Maybe if he participates in the consequences he won't want to do it anymore.
Any insights?
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2 comments:
If you ever do figure out how to stop him from doing it, please let us know, so we can get his partner in crime to cut it out. Gotta love them two-year-old boys!
Two-year-old boys? Girls have it just as bad! haha. I will say, it is difficult to get a 2-year-old to realize that anyone's opinions or ideas are better than their own.
I'm no parenting expert, but I'd say you're headed down the right track by having him go to timeout and/or clean up part of the mess he's made.
I guess the only tip I have is that I think 2-year-olds are certainly old enough grasp the concept of losing fun toys/privileges b/c of bad behavior.
Good luck! Once you get that figured out, maybe you could give us some advice on how to get Heidi to sleep past 6:00 A.M.
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