Dawdling Toddlers - 5 min walk takes 25 mins

[GeorginaA]

I know there's greater problems in the scheme of things, but this is driving me absolutely insane, so I was hoping I could take a step back, a deep breath and someone from the outside give me some pointers on how to approach this differently.

Ds (two and a half) is perfectly capable of walking fairly long distances now and as it's a pain taking the pushchair everywhere and end up trying to push it with one hand and hold his in the other, for short distances I tend not to bother.

Ds has always been easily distracted on these walks like any normal toddler, but recently the length of time it's taking him to walk a journey that takes me 5 minutes on my own is getting ridiculous. I don't think I'm being too unreasonable (actually, I probably am, but more on that later) - I don't expect him to walk as quickly as me, but I timed it today and it took 25 minutes for him to walk home.

I say walk but most of it is going in the opposite direction, stopping to watch the cars in Tesco's carpark that we pass, picking up stones, trying to stick leaves back on the trees, watching ants, and just plain standing completely still grinning at me knowing that it's winding me up something chronic. If he's not doing that then he's whining that he wants a cuddle home, then as soon as I try and pick him up ... NO, I don't NEED a cuddle... and runs away.

I've tried asking calmly in a cheery "let's try walking faster" voice, I've tried outright bribery, I've tried offering him the choice of being carried or walking home (although the voice inside my head is saying "please choose walk, please choose walk".

Of course, it's really not helping that I'm in the first trimester of pregnancy. I'm tired, I want to sit down at home as quickly as possible, I'm short-tempered and ratty, and he's getting too heavy for me to carry anyway. I could just give up and get the pushchair out again, but that brings with it a whole new set of whines and battles that for a short journey I start to wonder if it's really worth it.

I got so wound up and upset today over this trivial thing, that I know I need to step back and take a completely different approach - I know I'm aggravating the problem by the way I'm reacting and becoming "evil nagging mother".

Help!

Ah yes, walking with a toddler....arghhhhhhh!! I shouldn't worry to much to confessions of boredom, GeorginaA. Let's face it, banging a fence with a stick is really sweet and lovely for 2 minutes but (to me) really boring when it gets to be 20 minutes. Mind you, I suspect that my toddler finds reading the paper really boring while I find it quite interesting (but not all the time! Maybe she has a point...)
Of course we love our kids, but we have different interests and it is all about finding a middle ground. Also, worth persisting with the walking thing because pushing a double buggy with one hand, holding the toddler's hand with the other and trying to walk and calm a whingy baby is even more arduous!

Ds is just two and a chronic dawdler. I take the buggy everywhere but I let him walk the last stretch home. He loves racing me - he goes through the whole 'ready, steady, go' routine and I jog along beside him. I look like a complete twat but it gets us home before midnight.

I managed to get my DS, 27months, to walk alongside me, quite quickly, for about 300m yesterday, by getting him to 'help' carry a carrier bag.
But as Aloha says, see Penelope Leach on the subject. They really are programmed NOT to follow you until they are old enough to catch up under their own steam. The idea is that in an emergency the babies stay put until parents or other members of the family group scoop them up and carry them along.

Just caught up with this and Georgina I think I'm like you and am going to wait and see with the buggy board. DS is fairly cautious and not likely to be jumping off all the time but also not likely to get much exercise if that option is there for the next two years.

I've just caught up too - Georgina, I agree it's worth pressing on, because then when next one arrives he's used to walking, rather than having to be pushed out of the buggy. (I went through all this with dd1, who is now a splendid walker. Most of the time.)

Hey, another tip that worked really well for us - a toy buggy. Dd1 would walk for ages pushing one before she'd walk anything like the same distance independently, and it also kept her on a straight course and relatively safe while negotiating the South Circular, which is a really rather horrid main London trek. Sometimes this does require the two of you pushing buggies simultaneously and looking like total prats - and it can be rather hair-raising crossing the road as you have to free up a limb to keep track - but it does work...

GeorginaA
I was just about to suggest a toy buggy too. The other trick I use is 'magic squares', otherwise known as manhole covers. It started as there is one just before the end of our road and when he was first running ahead I used to tell him to stop on the magic square (so he didnt run out into the next road). It has caught on and now he races from one to the next, sometimes for quite long distances. And he has never questioned what is supposed to be magic about it!hth