Natural Consequences at Bedtimes

[EdithGrantham]

My DD is 3 and we tend to use natural consequences for any undesirable behaviour, e.g. she drew on the carpet with a felt pen out of frustration so the pens went away. This works fine for us most of the time but today she was refusing to tidy up her toys at bedtime and I was at a loss of what the consequence should be. To be clear I don't expect her to tidy up on her own yet, I help and direct her of what particular toy she could put away next, try to make it into a game if she's really not getting it etc but today she flat out refused and just carried on playing alongside me whilst I started tidying up.

In what was not my finest hour I got very frustrated, scooped up all the bits I'd asked her to help me with into a carrier bag and put them up out of the way and told her she wouldn't be getting them back until she agrees to tidy up. She said "OK, I'll play with them tomorrow" which made me think she didn't fully understand what I was saying. I told her if she wanted to play with them tomorrow she would be putting them away first. She told me she was sad with me but I think that was for taking the toys away, not the threat of not having them back to play with.

We've also had some instances of food throwing because she's got frustrated with using a fork so ends up flicking food on the floor, I try to get her to help me clean it up but sometimes she flat out refuses and again this has been at times where "You're not playing until it's done" can't be used, e.g. we need to leave to go to preschool or for a bath.

What do you do in these scenarios?

For tidying up etc, I'd use the consequence that it'll take me a lot longer doing it by myself, so then we'll have less time for fun stuff (eg fewer stories).

With messing around throwing food in the floor, it would be a consequence that she must be finished if she's messing around and not eating, so it would be the end of the meal (after a warning).

I wouldn't get into a battle about cleaning up food if you've got somewhere you need to be eg preschool.

if dd was playing with a toy or something at the wrong time (e.g. bedtime), I'd scoop up that toy and put it on a high shelf. it could stay there until it was time to play again. after a while, the threat of 'i will put the toy on a high shelf' was enough to know I was serious.

I tell my 3 year old that any toys left on the floor (if she isn't helping to tidy up) gets thrown into the bin.

She watched me throw a jigsaw in a tin box away which she flatly refused to tidy up and since then, the moment I mention what will happen if she is being stubborn she rushes to help.

I don't expect her to put everything away on her own, but she certainly needs to actively help! 🤣

Thank you, that makes sense in terms of tidy up with me and we can have 3 stories or I'll do it myself and we can only have 1, I think she'd understand that.

With the food it's not so much her messing about, it's more that she's getting annoyed when using her fork and refusing help as well, it tends to be when she's particularly hungry/tired

That was essentially what I was going to do today but like I say I don't think she was fully understanding what I meant. Either that or she just wasn't bothered about not having it until tomorrow because she knew it was bedtime anyway.

I'd be very wary of getting into battles with tired three year olds at bedtime tbh. No one wins that. Likewise when you do actually have to be somewhere.

I have nearly threatened that before but there are some toys that I wouldn't get rid of because of how much they cost or how well she plays with them the majority of the time so I don't feel like it's a threat I can fully carry out!

I agree. My son is 3 and is good at helping to tidy, say before we're heading out in the morning (I like to come back to a tidy home so we never leave the house with toys everywhere). But at bedtime he's really flagging and I'd just scoop up any toys myself. If he helps, great. If not, whatever. He shows he's being helpful in other ways- helps to brush his teeth, puts his books away after we've had bedtime story etc.

What is it about the fork that she's struggling with at 3 years old? I don't mean that to be cheeky but can't imagine what's causing so much difficulty for her. So if she's just mucking about with certain foods maybe don't serve those for a while.

I wouldn't threaten to bin toys either. I'd also have a look at how many toys she has/how they're organised.

My 3 year old tidies up well but he doesn't have a lot of toys and they are all easy to put away: one basket for duplo, one for teddies, one for vehicles, one for trains and train tracks etc. Everything is kept to a minimum and is clearly organised in a way that's easy for him to chuck things where they belong.

Good shout @BarbaraHoward and @Yourethebeerthief about avoiding bedtime battles entirely, usually I would to be fair but there had been a few things today where she'd pushed my buttons!

With the fork I don't think I'm explaining it well, so the majority of the time she's fine but occasionally she will get annoyed if for instance she gets two bits of pasta instead of one on her fork then she ends up getting really cross and kind of stab at her food which obviously doesn't help but she also doesn't want me to help, or if I do she'll insist I've done it "wrong". To be fair again, this usually only happens if she is particularly tired/hungry so maybe I need to just take a deep breath and ignore the tantrums!

We are pretty good on toy organisation, she has a few things out at a time but she likes to use things very imaginatively so we end up with lots of bits of toys out which all mean something, e.g. this bit of Duplo is a climbing frame, this bit of train track is a slide, the book is a trampoline so whilst it makes sense in her head and she does play well with it, it looks like a bombs gone off when she's finished!

It's hard. They push every button you've got. I'm forever finding myself about to enter into some stupid battle. Try not to get reeled in. If she's anything like my son, I find because his speech is very fluent I often forget he seems to understand more than he really does. Often at 3 they can give the impression of getting things but really they're still just tiny.