The theme of this past month was navigating our toddler through a sleep regression. Therefore, most of these ideas or things I learned will be geared toward the toddler age and how we got through the past few weeks.

Children can feel the adults’ emotions Children are like sponges, and will also pick up on the adult energy, their stress, and overwhelm. They will “catch” the emotions of those around them. I had heard this sponge analogy before in terms of how parents communicate with each other, and generally model the behavior you want your child to have. I hadn’t heard this before in the context of energy, but it makes sense, and is relevant while my husband looks for new job opportunities that could provide him with a better work-life balance.
Involve the toddler with sleep training the littles: This was actually a sleep consultant’s idea, and it worked out really well. We started by getting our toddler familiar with the nursery, and walked him through what was going to happen - his brothers were going to start sleeping in their own room, and that they will be learning how to fall asleep by themselves. Basically I was telling him what he was having to relearn during this sleep regression, by telling him what his brothers were going to be doing.
Sleep mantra (from Dr Becky Kennedy): A week ago, we learned about giving our toddler a mantra for bed, and this is our modification of what Dr. Becky recommended. “Mommy is near, Daddy is near, your brothers are near, E is safe, and my bed is cozy”. I introduced this mantra to him by telling him that this is what we were going to teach his baby brothers. The idea is that if the child wakes up during the night or has trouble falling asleep, they can say the mantra to comfort themselves. Now he asks us to say his mantra as part of his bedtime routine.
Buy a physical calendar for your toddler: The Big Little Feelings program is all about PREP. To address the “Reveal the Plan” (seen in the image below), I bought him a physical calendar to help explain that we will be taking an trip in an few weeks, and that things will be different for a few days, and we won’t be sleeping at home. I also used the calendar to involve him to help us pick a date to sleep train the littles. In short, he loves the calendar.
Child led play I had learned this concept before, but it was eye opening when a resource said try not to ask questions. I realized that I ask my toddler a lot of questions, during what I thought was investing in my “quality time bank”. I’m still practicing this, but I’m trying to really let him lead a time, try to play with him like a peer instead of a parent. Not every opportunity needs to be a learning opportunity.

To summarize, we have been intentionally spending more quality time with our toddler trying to empower him and include him with the changes around him.

five parenting ideas I’m trying this week - vol 02