When I first saw this I found it so funny. Every parent I show it to finds it funny.

The toddler rules of possession

1. If I like it – it’s mine.
2. If it’s in my hand – it’s mine.
3. If I can take it from you – it’s mine.
4. If I had it a little while ago – it’s mine.
5. If it’s mine, it must never appear to be yours in ANY way.
6. If I am doing or building something ALL the pieces are mine.
7. If it looks just like mine it is mine.
8. If I saw it first – it’s mine.
9. If you are playing with something and you put it down, it automatically becomes mine.
10. If it’s broken, it’s yours.
11. If it’s broken, but you are having fun playing with the pieces, it’s mine again.
12. If there is ANY doubt, it’s mine.
    (Kevin McHugh)

Are all toddlers this predictable? Do they all find it almost impossible to share? Um yes, I think so.

It’s mine!

“Mine” is often one of the first words a toddler REALLY gets to grip with. They use it often and really mean it. They don’t understand sharing, they want something so why shouldn’t they have it? It’s a hard lesson to learn and seems to be much harder for single children than those with siblings; where older children will force them to share! (often not in a nice way). A toddler is constantly learning that they are not totally inseparable from you and asserting their independence and personality.

It’s hard for us as parents to see our children changing from baby to child, no longer totally dependent and compliant in everything, but it must be very frustrating for the child. They don’t know the rules yet, they don’t know how to behave, they only know what they like and don’t like, what they want and don’t want.

My advice is try and calmly explain that they need to take turns, that they CAN have the toy back soon. Try to understand how they are thinking and how they see the situation.

The “mine” stage seems to last forever, and changes to “BUT IT”S MINE!” the frustration and confusion stays too. Ownership and sharing is a hard lesson to learn. Some adults still haven’t got the hang of it so why do we expect a toddler to hand over their toys and snacks willingly?

There is a game in our house which has truly stood the test of time. I played it as a child, hubby played it as a child – I think everyone has (well everyone who has parents that let children climb all over the furniture!).

Get your child to help you make an obstacle course out of chairs, tables, towels, cushions to name but a few.

Ideas:

• Make a ‘tunnel’ by putting dining chairs in a row, you child can then crawl though the legs. Make the tunnel more exciting by placing a blanket over the chairs.
• Make stepping stones out of cushions on the floor, and get them to jump from one to another.
• Roll a large towel up longways and use it as a balancing beam.
• Tie a cord between two chairs so children can ‘limbo’ or crawl underneath it.
• Our son likes placing chairs, cushions,blankets and so on from one end of the house to the other, and tries to get from the start to the finish without touching the floor (the floor is the sea and you will get wet if you touch the carpet!)

You can make the obstacle course more interesting by seeing how fast they can get from one end to the other. Older children need more of a challenge, see if they can do it while balancing a beanbag on their head.

Always supervise children when playing this game and keep and eye out for safety issues. (Make sure they cannot fall and hurt themselves, or knock your favourite ornament off a shelf)

With the post Christmas weather being so windy, you might be looking for indoor activities, and here is a good one to try out. Making a jigsaw out of a colourful picture taken from a magazine.

Here’s what you do:

You will need:

• scissors
• colouring pens (if the picture needs colouring in),
• cardboard (an empty cereal packet, or cardboard from a Christmas present is ideal)
• glue
• a colourful picture from a magazine

First of all, colour in the picture if needed, this one was ideal and it makes the finished puzzle even better if your child colours the picture in first. I find using his magazines is best, as then the finished picture is of one of his favourite TV characters.

Next glue your picture onto the cardboard, and cut out jigsaw shapes to make your puzzle. Depending on the age of your child, they may need help with this bit, you can draw the puzzle shapes on the cardboard side to help them with the cutting.

Once you have cut your picture into jigsaw type pieces you are ready to start playing! How quickly can you make the puzzle back into the picture?

Recommended age for this activity: from age 2, depending on your child.

Using scissors and colouring in, helps strengthen your child’s fingers, which will help them when they are learning to write.

You can use any pictures from magazines and a great alternative is to use a photo. Kids love to make jigsaws of themselves or a pet or their family. You don’t need to use a real photo, you can photocopy one (and make it bigger).

They say you can never start reading to your child too early. I have to agree with this. As soon as our baby was born, we gathered all the old Ladybird books from charity shops. All the traditional fairy tales I remember from when I was young.

It was great for me, reading stories I had half forgotten, half remembered. I think some had changed though, become more PC. I remember in the Gingerbread Man, the fox was much more violent and hungry! Maybe that was the way I remember it.

My baby liked sitting on my lap listening to my voice and looking at the pictures. He would be quiet and relaxed at the sound of my voice.

As he grew older, books stopped being a source of fun for him. Being boisterous and running about was much more important to him. It didn’t matter. Forcing him to sit down with a book would put him off reading for a long time.

Now he is 4 he has started to love books again. His command of words and his understanding of the stories make books fascinating to him. You can see by his face that he is absorbing every detail. He wants to be assured that the stories aren’t real. That Mr Tidy and Mr Neat (from Mr Messy of the Mr. Men) won’t come and tidy him up!

I have found that reading helps to establish a good routine. I read stories to him at bedtime. This gets him calm and ready for sleep after a day of running about and shouting. It is a good bonding time too. Just me and him, snuggled up reading a good book.

I love the books that he loves. His favourites at the moment are the Mr. Men series. He has the library of them, and loves to check which number the book is first, and count up to that number.

They were favourites of mine as a child too.

Some of his favourite books:

A Lark in the Ark: A Loopy Lift-the-flap Book

“My children love lift the flap books so I bought this purely because it says it has over 25. However, in addition to that it is actually a great book, the story is an easy to read rhyme about a game of hide and seek which is funny and illustrated beautifully.
I enjoy reading this book as much as my kids enjoy listening to it.” (Amazon review)

The Mr. Men Collection

“Have to say this is one of the best things I’ve ever bought for my son given the vast amount of time value he gets out of it. He enjoys going through the books looking at all of the pictures before he carefully decides which one I actually have to read. The stories are all very fun and have a bit of a teaching process as well – Mr happy always comes out on top whereas characters like Mr Mean and Mr Grumpy see the error of their ways and change to become good.
An expensive initial outlay as Childrens books go but well worth it in my opinion as your kids will just come back over and over to these books.” (Amazon review)

Harry and the Dinosaurs and the Bucketful of Stories

“This is a great story with lovely crisp clear pictures. Harry finds dinosaurs in Nan’s attic and lovingly rehouses them in a bucket. He learns all their names and they become inseparable. He’s very upset therefore to leave them on a train but is happily reunited at the end-osaurus. This is the beginning of the successful series of Harry and the dinosaur adventures, and my children and I love them all. I do think that the ‘Harry and the bucketful of dinosaurs’ series is a slightly acquired taste, a taste that’s very definitely worth acquiring. I wasn’t hooked the first time I picked one up because there is a little low-level misbehaviour such as the brother-sister squabbling. However, the more you read the book the more you enjoy it exactly because of this: Harry is so real in a pretty normal family (Mum & Nan – there’s no Dad in evidence). My children certainly appreciate this. They love it when Harry’s breakfast bowl ends up on sister Sam’s head in this story, for example, before he is sent to ’settle down’. Plus, from this book they’re learning the different dinosaur species and how to pronounce their names. A must-have book for the 2-5s.” (Amazon review)

This is a good fun activity for you and your toddler.

Sit with her and look through old magazines for numbers. Ask her to point out numbers when she sees them, the bigger the number the better (I don’t mean high numbers, but numbers that take up a lot of room!)

When you find a number, get her to cut it out carefully with child’s scissors.

When you have a pile of numbers, arrange them on a piece of paper and glue them down.

Count the numbers, see which ones you have missing. Which numbers are which? Talk about which numbers you can see.

More number fun

You can download these numbers here. Please print them out.

Your child can colour them in, cut them out or practice their numbers with them.

You can download this clown here Please print him out.

Your child can colour him in, count the balls, write numbers in the balls, or colour them in.

It was only since my son started playgroup that I really noticed that little girls just seem so much more independent, organised and talkative, than little boys. The old phrase “Girls are talkers, boys are walkers” seems to be so right. Is it though, or does it just seem like that? Research has suggested that boys are more boisterious and therefore more likely to get hurt, but they are able to do pretty much the same as girls and at the same time.

Fast forward the following video to 5 mins 43 secs. Michael McIntyre sums it up so well. It’s so true and so funny. The clip is from Live at the Apollo.

Going to playschool for the first time, I did feel like that. It almost felt like my son was communicating very little – but the little girls were sat in the corner doing the Times crossword (and the cryptic one at that). OK, so every child is different. Some grow up faster than others regardless of whether they are a boy or girl. So many things influence their development. It just seems to be the boys following the girls in developing language, and communicating what they want.

Maybe as a mother, you just notice the differences in children. Some kids are more advanced, and that worries you. Some kids are less able, that makes you feel all superior. But all kids are good at some things and worse at others. I really don’t see that there is right and wrong.

Going to playgroup, preschool and then nursery certainly improved my son’s language skills. He quickly progressed from a few words and many tears, to communicating sentences, role playing and becoming an amazingly funny little boy.

It still leaves me with questions though…

Do you have boy/girl twins?

Do you have boys and girls?

Have you noticed a difference between their rates of development?

When I was young, preschool kids TV meant Playschool each morning and Bagpuss or the Flumps if I was lucky. We certainly had no dedicated Kids TV Channel.

It is probably impossible for children today to imagine only 3 TV channels and no kids TV on a Sunday. Black Beauty was the best Sunday TV had to offer in my day.

Before my baby was born, I was looking forward to the joys of CBeebies. I think I may have been crazy. Yes some of the programmes are brilliant, but when you have seen the same one 3 times in one day, you start to go slightly bonkers. I will admit some programmes I could watch endlessly. Timmy Time and Pingu are my favourites. Luckily for me, they are favourites of 3yo too! It is slightly disturbing though that he has a fondness for Waybuloo. Just what is that show about? I just don’t get it. Maybe you have to be under 5 to appreciate these things. I hate the dubbed voices, I hate the freaky floating creatures. I hate the fact that pretty much nothing happens.

I like kids TV programmes to be fun, bright and educational. Justin Fletcher seems to get it right. Mr Tumble is genius, Gigglebiz IS funny, Something Special teaches us sign language in a way that I and 3yo actually remember. I love the shows that give me ideas for what I can do with 3yo. I Can Cook – Katy cooks things that are healthy and fun to make. Kids cooking doesn’t have to be just Crispie Crackles. Mister Maker and Doodle Do have fun arts and crafts ideas that keep me and 3yo entertained. (Maybe they just keep the inner Blue Peter presenter in me satisfied.)

It is easy to let CBeebies become your babysitter though. The off button on the TV is hard to press, even when you are going nuts at the thought of watching Balamory AGAIN! Some experts say that you shouldn’t let your young child watch TV. Some say limit it. I agree that if your child is doing something else, don’t have it on in the background. It is a distraction that doesn’t help young minds concentrate on something else, and let’s face it, it can send mum potty! The CBeebies babysitter is useful when you are busy. It has it’s drawbacks though. The songs and theme tunes wafting in from the living room to the kitchen while you are making dinner, can have the effect of getting inside your head for hours. Anyone been humming the tune to Timmy Time – ALL THE TIME?

What do you think is the best and worst of kids TV?

We all know every child is different. I know that I worried about whether my baby was developing at the right level. As he has got older, I have relaxed. His friends, other children at preschool and playgroups – they all have different skills, strengths and weaknesses.

This list below was sent to me by my health visitor. My son can do much better than some of them, and struggles with others. It is a good quideline though…  

Stages of Development of a 3 year old

Posture and large movements

• Can walk up and down the stairs, jumps from bottom step
• Climbs easily
• Turns round obstacles and corners while running
• Walks forwards, backwards and sideways
• Rides a tricycle using the pedals
• Can stand and walk on tiptoe
• Can throw a ball overhand, catches a large ball on or between extended arms
• Kicks a ball

Vision and Fine Movements

• Builds a tower of 9-10 bricks high
• Threads large wooden beads onto shoelaces
• Holds a pencil in preferred hand, copies a circle and a cross.
• Can draw a man with a head and one or two features
• Names and matches 2 or 3 primary colours
• Cuts with children’s scissors

Hearing and Speech

• Gives full name, sex and sometimes age
• Carries on simple conversation,
• Able to briefly describe present and past experiences
• Asks questions – Who?, Where? What?
• Listens eagerly to stories and demands favourites
• Knows several nursery rhymes to repeat and sometimes sing
• Counts up to 10 or more

Social behaviour and Play

• Eats with a fork or spoon
• Washes hands but needs adult supervision in drying
• Can pull pants and knickers up and down, but needs help with buttons and other fastenings
• Toilet trained through the day, sometimes has accidents
• Likes to help adults with domestic activities
• Enjoys floor play, with bricks, boxes, toy trains, dolls, prams
• Make believes alone or with other children
• Understands sharing
• Shows affection for younger siblings
• Shows some understanding between past present and future, ie yesterday, today and tomorrow

Great value books on toddler and infant development

This is a really quick and easy craft idea. 3yo loves making this crown. It is really versatile as it can be made for a special occasion like Christmas, or just for fun with any odd bits of paper or card. Cutting out pictures from magazines looks good. As does painting the crown all different colours.

Here is a step by step guide to making the paper plate crown – which we made here as a festive Christmas Crown.   You will need:

1. Paper plate
2. Scissors

Then for decoration, either paint, or coloured paper/card and glue.

Glitter, tinsel, feathers, or leaves, could be used as well.

First start off by making your crown…

Now you are ready to start decorating!

1. Take a normal paper plate
2. Fold it in half
3. Cut from the middle of the folded part towards the edge, like pizza pieces.
4. Fold the pieces back to make a crown
5. Try it on for size!
6. Start sticking coloured paper, leaves, glitter, anything – onto the triangles
7. Add as much or a little onto your crown
8. You should now have a colourful crown

All it needs…  is little more bling – as it is Christmas we added some tinsel.

I am already imagining everyone sitting down to Christmas dinner, wearing these hats!  I like making this crown, as the variations are almost endless. Toddlers love making things and they can do almost all of this themselves. Cutting the paper plate with scissors, is the only bit I take total control of!

Great crafty idea from Ang at www.amumssurvivalguide.co.uk Thanks Ang!

If you enjoy art and craft ideas for kids try:

Great gifts and a fantastic way to keep the children occupied in the holidays!

These are nursery rhymes that we remember from when we were young. Some have actions that you will remember, some have melodies, but all work just read out to your child. She will probably remember the words before you do!! As nursery rhymes are passed down through the generations, you may know slightly different versions. All of them are right, just different, feel free to add in your words.

Remember, it is never too early to start reading to your child.

You can view and print the PDF ebook for FREE
A-Z Popular Nursery Rhymes

Nursery Rhymes in our FREE PDF ebook are:

• The Alphabet Song
• Baa, baa, black sheep
• The big ship
• Bobby Shaftoe
• Christmas is coming
• Dance to your Daddy
• Doctor Foster
• Five little speckled frogs
• Frère Jacques
• Georgie Porgie

• Good night, sleep tight
• Goosey, goosey, gander
• Grand Old Duke of York
• Here we go ’round the mulberry bush
• Hickory, dickory, dock
• Higglety Pigglety, my black hen
• The Hokey Cokey
• The house that Jack built
• Humpty Dumpty
• Hush-a-bye, baby

• Hot cross buns!
• I Hear Thunder
• If You’re Happy and You Know It
• I’m a Little Teapot
• I was going to St. Ives
• Incy Wincy Spider
• I had a little nut tree
• I see the moon and the moon sees me
• It’s raining, it’s pouring
• Jack and Jill
• Jack be nimble

• Jack Sprat
• Knick, knack, paddy whack
• Ladybird! Ladybird!
• Little Boy Blue
• Little Jack Horner
• Little Miss Muffet
• Little Polly Flinders
• London Bridge
• Lucy Locket
• Mama’s gonna buy you a mockin’bird
• Mary had a little lamb

• Mary, Mary, quite contrary
• Monday’s child
• The North wind doth blow
• Old King Cole was a merry old soul
• Old Macdonald had a farm
• Old Mother Hubbard
• One for sorrow
• One, two, buckle my shoe
• One, Two, Three, Four, Five
• Oranges and Lemons

• Pat-a-cake
• Pease pudding hot
• Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater
• Polly, put the kettle on
• Pop Goes the Weasel
• Pussycat, pussycat, where have you been?
• The Queen of Hearts
• Ring-a-ring o’ roses
• Row, row, row your boat
• See, saw, Marjorie Daw

• She’ll be comin’ round the mountain
• Sing a song of sixpence
• Ten Green Bottles
• There was a crooked man
• There was an old woman who lived in a shoe
• This little piggy went to market
• There was an old lady who swallowed a fly
• Three blind mice
• Three little kittens
• Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor

• Tom, Tom, the piper’s son
• Twinkle, twinkle, little star
• Wee Willie Winkie
• What are little boys made of?
• The Wheels On The Bus
• Yankee Doodle

Remember – you can download the PDF for FREE

Download A-Z Popular Nursery Rhyme ebook

All you need to view it is Adobe Reader, if you don’t have this already you can download it for free.

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