How I keep my toddler busy

Okay frankly that title was for you to actually read this post. Catchy title there (wink wink).Now reality is toddler-hood is not designed to sit still. Despite that, we moms keep trying.

Few things that worked for us are:

Stacking cups

They come in different colors and shapes. My son stacks them up into a little tower and claps. Then, he destroys it and says, “Oh no!” and builds again. After building and destroying  for 3 to 4 times, he stacks the cups inside of each other. It is learning incorporated play as he differentiates sizes , colours and also counts while building his tower. It keeps him busy for an entire 10 to 12 minutes and that means pasta is cooked and sauce preparation is half way through (mommy has got to cook you see).

We bought ours from Toys R Us.

Board Books

Now this is something where he likes me to join in. No don’t even think my 19 month old little gentleman sits on my lap and listens to what I read. Never! He sits on the couch by himself and asks me to sit beside him. Then starts the reading and touching the animals and giggling. He loves the DK Touch and Feel Farm book and spends almost 10 minutes with it provided I am sitting with him. So, I pull this book out as my savior when I have no energy for any activity with him. Highly recommended.

We bought our books from Amazon.

Push walker

This is an activity board for a toddler who is just crawling and is a push walker for the toddler as he is learning to take his first steps. So glad we bought this for him. It has a sensory board attached to it. Initially it kept him busy for 15 minutes and now I manage a coffee break of 4 to 5 minutes for myself owing to it.

We bought ours from babyshop.

Gerber Graduates Puffs

From his 10^th month until now (19 months) this snack has been his comfort. This is that quick snack you can toss in the diaper bag when you are in a hurry. It is made with whole grains. I am listing the ingredients below:

A cranky almost hungry baby who does not give mommy space to cook his dinner is easily settled with this snack on his high chair. While he is busy counting little star shaped puffs and putting inside his mouth, I manage to serve his dinner. The best bit, 4 or 5 of these puffs do not fill him up and that means he still eats his dinner.  Win win situation right?

Water and bucket

Now if you are close to bath time and have a balcony or back yard the best thing to keep them occupied while you sit there watching them with a cup of coffee is a bucket filled halfway with water and a few toys tossed in. It never ceased to amaze me how much my little boy enjoyed his water play. It always turned too messy as we do not have balcony or backyard. So the kitchen flooded thrice and I said THE END to water play.

Hope you enjoyed reading this post.  There is another part to this topic coming up soon and meanwhile please do share your stories as well.