Mumsnet users hare the times their toddlers have ‘helped’ around the house with Fairy Non Bio

[JustineBMumsnet]

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Whether it’s their facial expressions or what they’re doing around the house, toddlers love to copy mum and dad. Fairy Non Bio would like to hear your stories about when your toddler has tried to ‘help’ around the house, seemingly unaware that they’re probably reversing your hard work.

Here’s what Fairy Non Bio has to say: “’We love it when a family unit comes together and everyone wants to help out, but because of all the chemicals in a laundry detergent we want to ensure that doing the laundry is only a mum & dad chore, however we would love to hear of all the other examples of how your toddler tries to help around the home”

Has your child attempted to do the hoovering? Perhaps they repeatedly empty and put away the contents of any cupboard they’re able to open? Maybe they enjoy destroying your organisation by sorting the clean washing?

All who share their stores on when your toddler tried to ‘help’ around the house, on the thread below will be entered into a prize draw where one MNer will win a £300 voucher for the store of your choice (from a list).

Thanks and good luck!

MNHQ

Standard Insight Terms and Conditions apply

My son liked to wash up. Only I had to give him a nice clean safe selection of Tupperware and utensils after having cleared the decks and had to hold him safe on a chair so it was a fun soggy game rather than help. He is less keen these days 😏

My son loves to wash up (mainly messing with water and bubbles) so when I wash up, he has his own washing up bowl and his plastic 'tea parpy' set and he washes his cups saucers and teapot. When we have finished I get my mop out and mop up all of the excess water !

DS 2 loves helping with the laundry - he helps hang small items like socks on the airer and puts them in the basket when they're dry. He loves matching up the socks as well.

My DD loves to fold the washing up from the washing machine. She gets very cross if I refold it

My dd aged 18 months was 'helping put the food shop away' she tore open a packet on jelly tots and they went flying all over the kitchen along with the sugar they're coated in all over the carpet I had just hoovered

Cooking. My middle one would insist on standing on a chair or stool and stirring whatever was cooking, splashing it everywhere along the way. If I tried to help he'd peel my fingers away one by one!

My eldest tried to help a few days after our youngest was born. She had just turned three and had obviously decided he needed changing or something. I was looking in the opposite direction and turned round to find she'd lifted him out of the moses basket or bouncy chair (forget which) and was half way across the room with him, his little feet dragging along the laminate!! I didn't want to alarm her in case she dropped him so had to move very slowly, which wasn't what my instincts were telling me at all!

My kids loved emptying and sorting my cupboards. Miss those days as they are now teenagers and feel hard done by when asked to do anything!

One of my boys is a brilliant help around the house. Buying a small handheld vacuum has revolutionised mine and his life as now its small enough for him to be able to use and so he regularly enjoys vacuuming up for me!
They are also really good and putting their clothes away. I adopted the Kon-Mari method of folding clothes a few years ago and so they really enjoying folding and putting clothes away.

My three DC have all loved helping me around the house when they were small, especially with the hoovering and dusting.

DS (18mo) is actually pretty good about tidying up toys, but only if you sing the "right" song - a request to tidy will get you nowhere, but a couple of renditions of "clean up, clean up, everybody everywhere, clean up, clean up, put the toys away" will have the place cleared in sections. I'm creating a monster If only his "help" with filling/emptying the dishwasher (dirty items to be taken out, clean items to be put in as per the toddler code; and climbing on the door to get to those hard-to-reach areas) was as appreciated...

Seconds, not sections - doh!

My 6 year old brought me a hot water bottle last week filled with cold water from the tap, it's the thought that counts!

My two both loved “ helping” with polishing, but like pp, this involved spraying way too much polish. I was never very happy about the chemicals so I got them a spray bottle each filled with plain water and “let” them polish things like skirting boards and some plastic storage cubes - things that wouldn’t be damaged by getting wet. Win win !

Mine 'helped' bring the washing in off the line at the weekend but just pulled the washing off pegs n all, so that snapped the line & broke a lot of pegs 🙄

My son loves sweeping up. We got him his own little broom but he prefers ours...

My three year old is obsessed with closing doors and turning lights on and off. Occasionally helpful, more often inconvenient!

My daughter once 'helped' me put a dvd on. Unfortunately it wasn't a dvd, it was a chocolate digestive biscuit. Which got stuck and melted before I could get it out!
Dvd player was ruined and went in the bin

My two year old loves taking the washing from the washing machine over to the tumble dryer. He then has to match the socks once it's finished

My two year old was being very helpful one hot summer's day by using the hosepipe with spray gun attachment to water the garden.

Then the doorbell rang.

In the time it took me to sign for the parcel, my toddler had wandered inside the lounge.....with the hosepipe still running at full force.

There was water everywhere. Up the walls, on the ceiling, all over the coffee table. Andy Murray was on his way to his first historic Wimbledon tournament victory that day....all I remember of that match is me gawping in despair at my new flat screen TV, still playing Andy Murray's finest hour ...despite water dripping down the screen and out the bottom
of the TV.

My son was banned from the hosepipe. For a long time. Maybe forever.

Ds loves to help with laundry. He puts clothes in the machine and likes to hand out the pegs when they get hung up. He also is the official laundry “patter” - when dry clothes are folded and popped in the basket he pats them.

He also feeds catface. Gets the bag of food from the cupboard, waddles with it to the kitchen waits until either dh or I scoop the food out then he puts the food in her bowl takes the bag back and gives himself a clap. He’s 16 months.

Lucas has "re-arranged" the bookshelf and his room several times (this pretty much means him emptying everything on the floor so I could pack it away again!)

Both my boys at young ages (3&4) love to help me cook by cutting up the veggies. Don't know whether I should have been scared or impressed as they did a good job.

Helping to sweep up, but in reality being no help at and and just spreading crumbs even further around the floor...

My two year old really tries to help bless her, even though it makes things trickier!
She likes emptying the dishwasher but is not very delicate - we've had a few broken dishes when I've not caught it in time. So we now have a one thing at a time rule for emptying the dishwasher so it just takes forever.

We also have the sweeping without actually sweeping. She likes swooshing through the pile of crumbs I've been sweeping and moving them all back around the room again, rather than collecting into a pile and discarding!

When my now 12 year old was a toddler, we'd been grocery shopping and he was helping me unpack. I passed him a toilet roll and said "go and put this in the bathroom". He mustn't have heard the last syllable, as I later went upstairs and found the toilet roll... in the bath!!