Where am I going wrong with my toddler ?!

[Beachbooks]

My little boy is 20 months old and I don’t feel like I’m doing a very good job with him at the moment.

I take him to various classes every week (e.g toddler football, music ) but he rarely engages in it and just runs around and messes about trying to climb up onto chairs etc.

I set up activities for him at home, similar to what he would be doing if he went to nursery. This week I did frozen paint, a block of ice with his toys frozen in for him to melt & fishing Pom Poms out of a bowl of water. He wasn’t interested in any of it, didn’t even want to sit in his paddling pool which he used to love. Instead just kept throwing rocks around even though I repeatedly told him no as it was dangerous.

I rotate his toys around each week but he’s more interested in jumping all over my sofa / emptying cupboards.

All our antenatal group are well on their way with potty training, are way ahead with their speech, can sit and play nicely & some of them are even counting to 10 and saying their alphabet. My boy isn’t doing any of that.

We didn’t send him to nursery as we aren’t eligible for the 30 free hours and it just wasn’t financially viable for me to go to work by the time I’d paid out for a train fare as well but I’m wondering if that was a mistake. It just seems like there is something I’m not getting right with him in terms of his behaviour & also learning.

Does anyone have any advice please ?

There is so much he could be doing with the water table. Model it for him and he’ll start busying himself. Get a little watering can and he can fill it up from the tray and water the plants. Get his cars dirty and give him soapy water to make a car wash. Best thing
of all for little boys in a garden? A kid-sized wheelbarrow. They will cart things around all day. Boys in particular just love to put themselves to manual labour.

I think it’s sad when parents look at their children’s development in comparison to other children, but even more so when it’s comparing boys to girls. Most (not all, but definitely most) boys have a different developmental arc to girls and want to play in different ways. It’s a shame to view throwing, jumping, climbing, wrestling, and generally running about daft as somehow lesser to how many little girls play.

He doesn’t need to know his alphabet right now. The amazing thing about kids is they actually show you what they need. He is telling you exactly what he needs developmentally and you can give that to him in so many ways. He’s learning how to move his body. Running, jumping, throwing and climbing are just as important (if not more so at a young age!) than counting to ten.

When my DS was 20 months he was
nowhere near potty training and he didn't have that many words. He loved being out at the park hitting a tree with a big stick.😅 I was working full time at that point so I didn't take him to groups.

You might try a more low key stay and play group where he can play and interact with other children in a less structured way.

He is still very very active at 3yo but he will play for a sustained amount of time with blocks, train tracks, jigsaws and cars.

If you want to do art type activities, I recommend doing it outside, or getting a roll of paper and taping it to the floor, instead of trying to get him to sit.

ETA I can see you tried stay and play. It took me ages to find someone to speak to at these things, but I think of it as being more for the kids than for me.

Mine is 25 months. Can talk in sentences (if that means 3-6 words together) but doesn't know numbers other than as random words - I they know understand the difference between 1 and 2 and nothing bigger than that! I would be amazed by a 20 month old who really did know numbers and the alphabet. Can use the toilet when prompted but certainly not toilet trained. My toddler will sit and engage for something THEY are interested in, otherwise they want to charge around. Not even Teletubbies will keep them sitting down for 15 minutes if they want to be moving, and that's fine and normal!

I think my toddler is perfectly normal and yours sounds normal too :)

Mine is 26 months old. I am on a Facebook group for babies born in the same month and year. A few months back someone asked ‘is it just my kid or does everyone’s 2 year old just wander around aimlessly not really playing with anything and anything that they do play with keeps their attention for 2 minutes’. Well that resonated with me and many other mums!
Of course you go to groups and see kids sitting quietly on their mums knee, that’s probably why they are there. But it doesn’t work for a lot of children around the 2 year mark. Mine has never really enjoyed groups that much and from talking to a few other mums it’s actually 3-4 year olds that engage more.
I’d stop trying to engineer play. Just put some toys out and let them get on with it. Buy a few garden toys and let them play on what they want. There will be whingeing etc but at this age, they need to just be allowed to explore and get on with it.
I thought by 2 years old we’d be going to museums etc. But now I laugh. 2 years is far too young for that stuff.

Your NCT group sound like an unusually driven bunch of parents! I have three children, and I've barely known anybody who was potty training at 20 months old. I assume that what's happened is someone's had a copy of the book "Oh Crap" and it's been passed around the group. There are some useful tips in it, but 95% of the book is utter horseshit honestly and I expect most people to give up and try again in about 6/9 months. Maybe 1-2 will get lucky and find that it works well for them but it's really luck at this age if it does.

The thing I don't like about the book is that the author spouts a load of confident rubbish in it, and one of her main things she repeats a lot is this magic age of 20-30 months, which she considers to be the peak readiness window for potty training, and if you miss this it's all over and you will have a terribly awful time. I just think she's wrong. IME she is totally wrong. All my children trained somewhere between their 3rd and 4th birthdays, and they seemed to get the hang of it a lot easier than any time we tried when they were younger. Now, I know that this is something where the current fashion is changing - up until fairly recently, the message we kept getting from all angles was "Wait until they are ready!" and now there are official bodies going ah, actually, no, sorry that was wrong, we have loads of children starting school not properly potty trained, you don't need to wait until they want to do it, you should encourage them to try from about the age of 2/2.5. (Which I do agree with).

Another thing the author keeps banging on about in the book is that when a child can recite the alphabet, that means they are ready to potty train, which could possibly be why some of them are trying to encourage this? I remember finding it such a bizarre claim when I read this - she actually refers to the alphabet song specifically, which I think must just be a lot more prevalent at an earlier age in the US where she is from. In the UK, I just don't think this song is given so much importance or seen as a major nursery rhyme - it might be something that they sing at nursery or school age, but even there it's not that popular because most schools teach phonics and so learning the letter names is a bit confusing, not to mention the whole thing where young children sing "ellemenopeeee" not realising that it is actually L, M, N, O, P.

Anyway, sorry, this has turned into a bit of a rant - as others have said though, speech development is highly variable at this age, and if he's at less than 50 words (which is fine at 20 months) then he's not yet at the stage where they are interested in rote-learning stuff. That tends to come IME more when they have the explosion from a few dozen words to a few hundred - they become word sponges and that's when they like to copy longer strings, like nursery rhymes and if you want you can teach them to name all sorts on command like colours, shapes, numbers, body parts etc. It sounds like some of the DC in your NCT group have had this word explosion, and your DS hasn't yet, but both are normal. With the rote learning, it's all fine and nothing wrong with it, but it's not necessary and particularly for numbers and letters, it doesn't teach them anything about what the numbers or letters mean. Personally I found it more fun and natural to teach numbers incidentally, by doing things like counting steps, counting bits of food or toys to share, counting blocks to make a tower the same, counting 123 go etc.

Remember your LO is still very little - they are only one and a half! Don't worry too much about things like structured activities and classes. They are amazing little scientists at this age and they are fantastic at exploring and learning by themselves. Two things I would absolutely recommend are looking up play schemas, which is a way of understanding toddlers' play which seems random or sometimes destructive, but is actually about understanding the world. And then look at something which explains how they learn socially - I loved The Continuum Concept although it is a bit mad, outdated and hippyish - a more up to date version is probably Hunt, Gather, Parent. This is also fun. https://www.ted.com/playlists/289/the_genius_of_babies

Ditch the classes and work out a new routine with soft plays, swimming and play parks as your schedule. I did quite like museums at that age but my son was basically running riot while I followed him and enjoyed being in different surroundings.

If you regularly go to the same local park you may also find like minded parents to chat to.

I was coming back to say this. We’ve got a tuff tray type one and my kids go nuts for it, I just change the toys up and do bits and bobs like this poster has said.

Ahh let him throw rocks. Take him to a little stream and let him throw rocks in

basket ball hoop

Velcro dart board

the kid likes throwing. Let him throw

Don't feel deflated. Having a parrot isn't something to aim for!!

he's been on this planet 20 months. Just let him be 💕 and relax!

if you want some structure to your week, look at play groups instead of the groups you pay a lot for & are very regimented.

Try regular toddler sessions at your local
pool (just fun play ones, not lessons))

he's speaking, he's learning new words, he'll string them together! There's really really no rush. Just keep talking to him & reading to him.

the boys were obsessed with the sofa/cushions throw between18 months & about 3.5. Throwing them
iff, jumping off the sofa base, stacking the cushions, throwing the throws over them etc. it wasn't a problem as it was an older sofa & I didn't mind ( they knew not to do it with the other one or anyone else's). I won't lie there were days when putting it back together would make me want to scream. BUT it was good activity for their little minds & bodies!!

they loved the big 'things' drawer in the kitchen (old utensils, unused tubs & lids etc) they thought they were 'kitchen things' not toys so they were more valued. They didn't realise that I never used them
jn the kitchen
🤣🤣

dame in the bathroom/garden. Anything that was 'a thing' was more 'valued' than toys. But we also had 'sacrificial' toys that were allowed in the sandpit/water trough/paddling pool.

big bubble wands, lots of balls in different sizes. Etc

& the toys they did live they were 'allowed' to mix up & play with together (wooden train set, dinosaurs, hot wheels, teddues!, octinaughts etc. their imaginative play was much better for being 'allowed' to mix up their toys ( even though I had to get over myself!! 🤣🤣)

one grew into living puzzles, they both grew into living messy art, but not at 20 months.

Just let him play & grow 💕
don't stress that he's not doing xyz 🤗

Stop trying so hard

Pom poms out of a dish?! Forget that and just give him a bucket, spade and let him loose in the garden

You need to stop focusing on there only being one objective with a toy/play: the child doesn't know which objective you expect him to obtain. I.e. 'Oh, here's a slide, let's go down it!!!'

Toddler : No, let's just play on the steps instead.

Just catching up on all the messages now, thank you everyone.

@BertieBotts you are absolutely on the money re the Oh my crap book going round the group !! I was just about to order a copy myself but your rant has put me off.

I can’t see who said it now but the point around not doing toy rotation is an interesting one. He has got heaps of toys (first grandchild!) but we have all the toys you mentioned so I will keep those ones out and see what happens.

Also a good point about boys being different to girls - he’s the only boy in our nct group so I suppose the difference seems more glaring.

We had a football class today and he participated in maybe about 60% of it which is an improvement. This afternoon I just left out his duplo which he played with for maybe about 20 mins on his own. Then we went outside and I had some balls out for him to throw into a bucket but of course he didn’t want to throw them today 😂

I’ve got a 20 month little boy just like this and he does go to nursery and do quite structured activities that he has no interest in at home. He’s my 4th - I just think he’s completely normal. I’ll potty train after 2 like my others. He needs to be very active, he loves to mess with things and he likes to be put to work - so he helps with the dishwasher and carrying things. Which of course is usually unhelpful and makes things take longer. one of his ‘treats’ is to be let lose to play with the Henry hoover so I sometimes save that when meant him to be distracted for a bit!

It really is completely normal to be like this.

I recommended stopping the toy rotation. It’s personal preference and might not suit your family, but I definitely prefer a minimalist approach with kids’ toys. I think it’s healthier for them.

My 5 year old has magnet tiles, Lego, some people and animal figures, a few vehicles, brio trains and tracks, play-doh and various tools/cutters, teddies, a Yoto player, and plenty of arts and crafts things. And books of course. He does have other odds and ends like a torch and little treasures he collects in an old biscuit tin, but I do see how little he has compared with other children. But I also see how well he plays independently and just easily occupies himself compared with other children his age. If there’s anything he wants to play with we build it with the magnet tiles or Lego or junk recycling and tape. Or make bigger structures with couch cushions and blankets. This week we made a Lego factory with a cardboard box and his truck was delivering the bricks to build Lego Land.

There are some good videos on YouTube about getting rid of kids toys and keeping what is actually played with. One called “the 30 minute method to ditching toys”. Your son is at the perfect age to nip the toy mountain in the bud. I really think toy rotations are a modern result of overconsumption and not good for children’s development.

He sounds like a typical 20 month old boy tbh, even my similar age youngest daughter doesn't like too much of a structured class. Sure he’d be far happier just going to the park with a ball, dancing with you in the kitchen or going on a walk up and down some mini hills, swimming etc. Make the most of the summer and getting out and about. Our local children centre groups are the best, especially the one with a nice outdoor area. As for his development, ha I had my first doing his ABC etc at 2, didn’t bother with my subsequent children and they’ve all done absolutely fine!

Ha yes mine are completely different at nursery, happy without dummy, join in the nursery rhymes, eat their lunch etc 🤣

You can google it and get the gist of it. IIRC the gist/useful bits from it is basically just keep them bottomless for the whole of day 1, and put your own phone (and other distractions) away so you can really watch them because you'll start to see little "tells" before they have an accident, which really helps you tune into them and avoid accidents in general. If they start doing a wee, grab them and try to get some of it into the potty and praise this even if 90% of the wee was on the floor. Avoid using a reassuring phrase like "Don't worry, it's OK!" if they have an accident in the first stages of training, say something like "Oops!" or "Uh-oh!" instead, otherwise it's not clear that peeing where you stand is not what you want. If you're having little success, just go back a stage rather than giving up or increasing pressure. (The stages are bare bum > commando > full underwear/normal clothes) and when you first move up a stage, stay close to home and increase supervision. Oh and also, once you've decided to do it, then commit to it properly, don't keep stopping and starting, give it a proper go. (I only half agree with this, I think it makes sense to dedicate say 3 days to it, but I would stop and try again later if there is no progress in the 3 days or if the child is very distressed on day 1.)

I think that was about it for the useful advice - I disagreed with almost everything else. Her book made a lot more sense when I understood that her context of "I have potty trained hundreds of children" is based on her having previously been a social worker.