Road safety for toddlers

[cocoachannel]

DD is just short of two. The logistics of where we live mean it is often easier to leave the buggy at home if we are going out for coffee ot something and DD likes to walk (she is also very light for her age so we have the fall back of carrying her). Unfortunately, however she seems fascinated by the road and seems to want to try and step out into it/ walk right in the kerb. We are using a backpack with reigns. Today she threw her first proper tantrum because I wouldn't let her look at the gutter of a very busy road.

Any tips on trying to reach good road safety habits, of am I better off just struggling with the buggy until she is older?

Use the reins, but you will need to reinforce it with voice instructions and occasionally just hauling.

We used the buggy as a deterant. If dd ran off, we'd strap her back into the buggy.

She's 3.3 now, and holds my hand tight in car parks, and crossing roads. Put the fear into her of roads, why I'm kinda pleased about, as she doesn't run off in crowds as before when she was younger. She gets a pep talk before hand.

We had a dog run over when DD was 2 and that prompted a talk about how a car would hurt you and make you very sore and poorly if it bumped into you and that is why we have to be very safe crossing the road. We used reins if we were taking them somewhere really busy otherwise we just held hands. They are 2 and 3 now and occasionally if we are somewhere really busy I pick up the younger one. On normal trips locally I make a routine of stopping, looking each way or pressing the crossing button then standing back and waiting for the green man so now the routines are second nature to them.
If either of them are silly or try to run off they get picked up rugby ball fashion (rather than nicely that could be seen as a reward) and told they can walk once they have stopped being silly which is tricky if they both kick off at the same time and I end up with one under each arm.

I ask lots of questions and make crossing the road into a quiz game, asking so what do we do next? Where should we stand to be safe? What colour man do we need to wait for? They love getting the answers right and getting lots of praise. It has made a massive improvement to trips out and I have more confidence taking them out because they are much less likely to try to do a runner near the roads now.

I had the same problem, my dd would try to run into the road after a feather or leaf.

I always keep her on the pavement side so I'm closest to the road, always hold hands and allow plenty of time to stop and collect things, or ask questions.

It's a worry though.

Thank you all for the advice!