My 2 year old is fearless!

[deva87]

I can imagine a lot of mums often think the same about their little ones!

My son turned 2 6 weeks ago and all of a sudden he's mastered opening the fridge (despite having a fridge lock) and the more dangerous ones of pulling out plug socket covers and sticking headphones in them and also how to open locked doors with keys. He laughs at me when I tell him off and put him in time-out, I think he's too young to understand what he's done?

As a single parent, I can't be everywhere with him at once but I feel like I need eyes in the back of my head! I can't rest.

Does anybody have any ideas of how I can slow him down before he really hurts himself?

Save the no for really serious transgressions.

Do a bit of proofing in your home.
Distract - have a think about whether he needs new toys or access to outdoors a bit more?

Get him involved in what you're doing. So I let ds help me cook for example. So you don't need to leave him as much.

Teach him how to do things safely by showing then praising when he does it.

This is totally normal I'm afraid I think he is old enough though to think about a consequence that he won't laugh at!

Child proof what you can, don't sweat the small stuff, allow him some freedom to learn the hard way (obv not really dangerous things!) and make sure he is burning off as much energy as poss!!!

Consequence wise you really need to find something that is an effective punishment and deterant!!

I think half the problem with him is because he's a rather big toddler and he knows he is! The fridge lock is REALLY high up and he knows if he pulls the door hard enough the sticky tape will break and he can open it.
As for the plug covers - I got the ones where you are supposed to use a plug to pull them out - somehow he's figured out how to do it without and not even I can do it lol.
Keys have now gone up very high!

Be careful with plug socket covers there are some people that now reccomend not using them as they are dangerous.

I think he is old enough to be told no tbh. Ds is 21m and very much like this. I found "No, don't touch" while removing his hand, every time he touched the telly/oven etc. worked very well.

Also a bit of distraction works wonders :o

I usually resort to tapping his hand and saying 'don't do that you'll get a boo-boo' seems to be the only thing he understands at the minute but then he goes and gets a plaster and cries until you put it on him