Thanks for the positive feedback on Wednesday’s Tips From The Trenches: Infant Edition. Here’s what I’ve learned so far about raising a toddler from my family, friends, and fifteen month old Siena:

Seconds?
No matter how resourceful you think you are, don’t tell your husband that you added apple and cherry baby food puree to the crockpot, even after he tells you how delicious your barbecue pulled chicken is. You may end up with more leftovers than you’d counted on.

Hypothetically Speaking…
IF your baby has one of those awesome rubbery bibs with a pocket to catch dropped morsels, and IF she’s repeatedly “asking” for refills of water in her plastic shotglass, and IF you’re too distracted emptying the dishwasher and making brownies vegetables to help each sip get to her lips…don’t be surprised when you take off the bib and it’s full to the brim with water she has carefully collected one half ounce at a time.

Excuse Me?
If you’re doing some early potty training, and love how cute your baby looks perched on the toilet with her special seat reading board books to herself, don’t be surprised if she starts clapping for anybody in the household who, um, passes gas.

Plump It Up
If your raisins have crystallized, you can plump them up in warm water (or microwave a bit) and keep them in the fridge. Easier for Baby to chew, probably better for her teeth than regular sticky raisins, and you don’t have to throw them away!

Act Your Age
When you find yourself sounding like a toddler, trying to pull your cell phone out of Baby’s hands to check the text that just came in, declaring, “It’s mine!” use the wording that worked so well in my preschool teacher days: Your turn. My turn. That tells them that even though they have it in this instant they don’t have it forever. Conversely, even though they DON’T have it this instant, it is not lost to them forever.

Eager Beaver

When I was browsing the various baby gizmos available for shower registries, I did not select a method for covering her crib’s railings from her gnawing teeth. Plastic and rubbery versions were available, but I didn’t want to permanently cover the pretty wood, and didn’t see any reviews about damage caused when removing the gizmos. I figured I would wait to see if Siena chewed on her crib, and if so, I figured I could teach her NOT to do so. (Sound like a first time pregnant mother to anybody else?) Not surprisingly, soon after Siena had teeth her crib started to look like it had been attacked by beavers while my angel slept. I noted a cloth covering in a friend’s blog, and tried using her old cradle bumpers (smaller than crib bumpers) tied around the railings to achieve a similar effect. It’s been a great solution so far!

Do you notice that my Toddler Edition is shorter than the Infant Edition? I’ll keep you posted as Siena teaches me more about parenting a toddler. In the meantime, I’d love to hear any tips YOU have to offer!Leave them in the comments section below.