How to get my son (3) to help

[bobflob]

This is probably not that important, but often when i am unable to do a simple task because I am holding 1yr old daughter or nappy changing etc, I'll ask my son (3yr 5mnth) to e.g. pick something up for me, he stares at me and slowly says "no, I don't want to. You do it". Which is quite annoying and funny at the same time.

I'm just interested if anyone has thoughts on this?

Any tips to make him happy to help?

No idea but if you do find a way let me know, I could use it on DH...

Maybe introduce a sticker chart? That has worked really well for my 3 year old. When she gets a certain number she gets a treat like an ice cream :)

I wonder if part of the problem is you're giving attention to this tiny invader that's changed his life and then getting him to do things so you don't have to put them down.
How does he react if you aren't with the baby, or if you say "come on, we need to tidy this together?"

You've got a choice, I'd say. Ignoring, bribery or command.

1. Ignore him and just do it yourself.
2. Sticker chart or something which he loves. "Pick it up for me and we'll go to the park afterwards/have a yoghurt/read a book..."
3. You tell him he has to do it, don't give him an option and treat it as disobedience if he doesn't.
4. Do it together and make a game out of it, Mary Poppins' style.

Don't particularly recommend 3, I'd probably do a mixture of 1 and 2. You can be passive aggressive with 1. "Pity, I was going to take you to the park, but if I have to do this all myself, then there won't be time". Which used to work on my oldest, but the other two would have ignored back again. 🤣
The sticker chart worked well for dd1 and dd2. We had a sticker for anything good, even saying "please"/"thank you" type level. They could then swap them at a rate of about 2p a sticker, although things I liked were cheaper and there was a very heavy sweet tax! So a 2p sweet might well be 5 stickers, but a sticker book worth £1 (which then kept them entertained for a good half hour) might only be 10 stickers.

Ds only thing was 4. If he didn't want to do it then no bribery worked, and he hated stickers with a passion. That last one was fun in Reception where he thought a sticker on his jumper was the last thing he wanted. However he used to love helping. If I cleaned the oven, he used to clean the side oven, hoovering, he'd get the duster out, hanging the washing out he'd pass me each piece of washing or pegs etc.
But he was the youngest so I had time!