How to start as you mean to go on

[vicdubya]

Ds turned a year last week.

He has been quite active for a few months, crawled at 6 months and has been walking for a few weeks, so he has been "into" everything for some time.

I try not to limit his exploration of the house too much and really only say "No" to things which are clearly dangerous / no-go's, and I can;t always move them out of his way, e.g. the oven, table lamps, chewing outdoor shoes etc.

He doesn;t really take any notice when I say No - it doesn;t stop him, but he now knows the things which will make me cross if he touches them, so he has started doing it on purpose.

So - how do I deal with it?

Is he too young for time out? I don't think he would "get it" at all.

While I was washing up the tea stuff he went over to the oven 6 times and despite me getting cross, taking him away from it and trying to distract him (as best I could) he was determined to keep seeing what my reaction was going to be.

The whole day had been like it tbh.

We both have streaming colds which doesn;t help & dh is working away so I am on my own and feeling pretty tired, but I feel I've got to do something?

IMHO the best way is to remove temptation - we have a stairgate in the kitchen door. Now is the time when your belongings start moving upwards, so that there is as little as possible for you to worry about less than 2-3 feet above the floor.

If you know that he's safe and is just trying to make you react, you could always just ignore him. It works, but can take a few attempts. But you must be consistent.

If it's something really dangerous, like the oven door (even if it's cold), then you may need to bark a loud and scarey "NO!" an physically remove him from the area a couple of times.

And another thing we do is to make sure that there are some toys in every single room, so that the babies are less likely to get bored.

Hmm..

Stairgates he just stands at crying until I've finished whatever (we've got one on the utility room cos the cats food & litter tray are in there).

He has two cupboards which are not locked he is allowed in with saucepans etc but even that wasn;t enough tonight.

I guess I'll have to get scarier in my tone!

I did once obviously use a more urgent tone when he was about to throw my toothpaste down the loo and he stopped and cried...

But e.g. the oven door (when cold) he kind of goes up to it very slowly, perhaps just poking one finger out towards it, all the time looking for my reaction and it's hard to stage a quick and scarey "no"!! In fact more often it makes me laugh (not that I would actually show it!) - there is a real comical side to it - if it wasn;t for the actual danger / harm!!

I think maybe I need to take drama lessons

Mine took ages to react to no at all. Hes know 21 months and it only takes about 5 times and moving him away from something to work now!! (well most times less). When he was a year it was just something I said that was of no concern to him! He go the concept of hot before that though by touching radiators and then linking that to the oven and food and my coffee,

I just kept saying "not for bob" in a stern but not cross voice and removing him, and then praising him for staying away from the kitchen. I taught him "hot, not for bob" for the oven and hob. I had to do this many many times a day.

Then one day I realised I hadn't had to do it for ages.

Whatever you decide to do keep going, it could take weeks or months to work, but once it does it's stuck for ever. Bob occasionally now will try just to see and I just go "not for Bob" and he looks sort of relieved that the rule hasn't changed and wanders off.

Distract, distract, distract. Our house looks like a nursery school because I like to have plenty on hand. When ds is doing something he shouldn't, I give him 2 or 3 choices of something else. He generally lights up and heads off to something. That said, now that he is 19 months he got very interesting in opening the oven door. Before he would just point and say Hot or sometimes poke at it with a finger. I was getting worn down with it so dh drilled a hole in each cupboard beside it, put metal rings there (like the eye for hook and eye hardware) and then we put a big bungee cord over the door. It looks a little odd but has worked beautifully.

If he must be in the kitchen, try giving him safer objects - like pots and pans with wooden spoons to bang on, maybe some grapes to put in and out of little plastic pots (maybe the pots you use for his food) - my daughter used to love doing that at that age! Plus she would eventually eat all grapes Now (21 months) she loves sitting on the side of the kitchen whilst I cook and put OXO cubes in and out of their boxes.
Also, she didn't pay attention to "no" until 15 months and even then whenever we said "no" she's do it again to get reaction. In the end we just made sure we said "no" for dangerous stuff and let her get on with touching everything else. They soon get bored when there is no reaction.

Just remember to cut the grapes in half!

I agree with distraction and more distraction. Or ignore if he does things specifically to attract attention.

They are not yet programmed to understand and take note of 'no' - if they gave up in the face of opposition, difficulty or other barriers to their will, they would not learn to walk or master any other skills, so I just don't think it is in their comprehension.