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Parenting

09th May 2021

And THIS is how you keep your toddler occupied so you can get stuff done

Trine Jensen-Burke

keeping toddlers busy

Anyone who has ever been in the possession of a toddler will have first-hand knowledge of just how hard it is to get anything done during the hours they are awake.

And let’s be clear – once they are asleep, we are usually so wrecked we don’t get anything done then either.

Which is why we welcome ALL tricks and hacks that involved keeping them busy while we are attempting whatever it is that needs doing, be it to have a shower, clean the kitchen or send some e-mails.

One good thing about toddlers is that they love copying what we do and they LOVE helping out. And remember – letting them help out with whatever it is we’re doing is good for their development. It builds confidence, and develops useful skills and habits. However, sometimes, you just need to get on with things and for those times, we love this mum’s clever hack.

Blogger Eyes of a Mum recently took to her Facebook account to share how her son loves to play with her makeup brush and instead of using it on his face, the clever mum showed him a better use for it:

“The Boss Man loves my blusher brush,” she explains.

“He doesn’t use it on his face, he just likes brushing things with it. To stop him ruining the one I use, I’ve given him a spare one and he always comes and gets it out of my make up bag whenever I’m doing my make up. This morning I taught him to dust the skirting boards with it and he’s now been cleaning every one he can find!”

Can we get an Amen for how genius this is?!

I used to plop my little boy inside the bathtub (no water, of course) and get him to ‘clean the bath’ with an old toothbrush and just a little drip in the tap he could dip the toothbrush into. This activity would easily buy me 20 minutes to fold laundry, clean the bathroom, or simply sit on the floor beside the bathtub and enjoy my coffee while it was still hot.

Have YOU got any great tricks when it comes to keeping your little one(s) busy while you get stuff done? Please share – I think this is the kind of info us mums need to share more freely with each other.