desperate! - please help with 18mo, how do you 'tell off'?

[shoesies]

My 18mo ds is generally a really lovely, cuddly boy. He's always been very active, was walking at 11 months and since then has been like a whirlwind around the house, why walk when you can run right?!

We childproofed the house as soon as he was active but there are things that he wants to climb on/play with that we just can't move ie toilets, ovens, tables and chairs. He now spends a lot of the time trying to climb on furniture and constantly touching the oven. Our original method of dealing with this was to say a firm and gentle NO and take him away. I thought if we said it enough times he would learn My problem now is at the age of 18 months I'm sure he can understand that he's not allowed to do certain things... The gentle nos aren't working, I don't know what to try now. I know he's still very young and I'm not expecting him in any way to be perfectly behaved! But the problem is all the things he wants to do are dangerous and I have to make him understand that he can't.

His speech development is not particularly fast, he says mamma and dadda but not really to us, more just words that apply to anything. But he can understand a lot of what we say, can point to body parts and bring you his teddy when you ask him to etc. Do you 'tell off' an 18month old? Or is that futile? On the occasions when I've lost patience and shouted at him he's just looked confused and carried on doing it. Please, any suggestions? We've reached the point where I can't even go to the loo anymore as when I come back he will have climbed on the coffee table.. He has fallen off a couple of time and hurt himself

Sorry for the long post - any advice gratefully received!

Sorry, but telling off an 18 month old is futile.

In your situation, I re-did the baby proofing. This meant putting a gate over the kitchen door, and getting rid of furniture like low tables.
It won't last forever but it is much safer toavoid the opportunity for him to hurt himself than to expect him to learn not to do these things at his age.

Thanks - I already knew there was no point telling him off! Our problem is, our house is tiny, the kitchen/dining area/living room is all one room - it's impossible to put gate up to kitchen... At what kind of age do you think children can understand not to do stuff like this?

Well he'll see you touching this things so no wonder he's confused

My DS is 19 months so I can sympathise. I don't tell him off - pointless. I tell him the oven is hot, I distract him. If I need to cook, I'll give him some utensils and saucepans to play with and only do 5 mins at a time. I occasionally say no but distract immediately.

In terms of climbing - we've taught him how to get up and down furniture (sofas and chairs) but supervise in case he tries to climb other stuff so I can distract if I need to. We don't have coffee tables out when he's around.

It is his home too and he wants to explore - you'll have to make it more friendly too him. You can't leave him alone for more than a minute at that age - he's only tiny. DS walked from 10 months so I know it's easy to treat him as if he's older than he really is. If I need to go to the loo, he comes with me!

What I did was to crouch down in front of DS, hold him by the shoulders, look him directly in the eyes with a serious expression and loudly and firmly say 'NO, HOT' or 'NO, DON'T TOUCH' etc. Because I'm not normally a shouty mother, he found this approach quite clear and although he was a little alarmed and upset momentarily, he soon learned what he wasn't allowed to do.

im starting to have this prob with 12mo ds. He even used to come to loo with me too. But i had to stop that when it got annoying so now i leave him outside the loo, ive placed a smalll toy box there and hes happy. Still interested to know whe they do understand as OP asked. I cant dothe dishwasher til dh comes home or sometimes while ds is in his highchair because he tries to climb in...

it's a nightmare time, so much sympathies!! All you can do is supervise, teach him the safe way to do things, save the no for dangerous situations, and keep him occupied and distracted. Lots of exercise out of doors and use the highchair/bumbo and a snack when you NEED to leave him alone.

I was told to do the following although it isn't really working for me . When they DELIBERATELY do something naughty (say in anger, excitement, curiosity etc)

Tell them you know how they are feeling (label the emotion)
Then explain why what they have done is unacceptable
Then show them what to do instead (apparently this is the bit they NEED, as they understand what they can't do, but don't know what to do with their feelings)

Really hard to do!!! But apparently it works.....

I think he might be too young to explain why not. Toddlers are impulsive and don't have that level of understanding. Showing what to do instead can work well though - it does for DS especially if I give it as a one word instruction eg down or gently.

Thanks for the sympathies and advice! I'm sure he is too young to have any idea of what he is doing, but it's just so frustrating at times (especially when have been up since 5 am...). I love that he's curious but I wish he wasn't so curious about whats on top of the bloody kitchen table!