Sigh.

Thanks again for all of these stories.

The praise is easy. You’re already doing that for other stuff – eating dinner, using potty, what have you.

Accessible storage is a bit harder, because toy bins suck. I have a 70s credenza with sliding doors that holds her toys. There are a couple of bins that slide under it for the overflow. Because it is exactly her height and has 2 shelves inside, it is ideal and doesn’t look like a toy bin.

Besides storage, things should just be accessible. The Mook’s laundry basket looks like something a snake charmer should be using, including the lid. In fact, I’m even able to get her to pick up my socks and put them in the laundry basket.

Help! As a mum of a 2 1/2 year old, I get down on the floor with her to help. If you’ve watched Wonder Pets, you know it’s all about teamwork. Sometimes it’s just a matter of me keeping her company while she does her thing.

Let me know if you’ve got any tricks for getting her to d@mn well listen to me.

What worked is it felt like a game and there was an end to it that I could see. There was also en element of “this sucks but we have to do it but not forever.”

I still get in a cleaning mood when I hear Neil Diamond which, I admit, is a little weird.

Seriously, it can happen, I tell you this as a mother of three (2 boys and 1 girl). Depending on your child’s personality what I’ve found works is;

1) making sure everything has a place. I’ve tried one big toy box and lots of smaller bins to store specific types of toys. In my house, the second way works best… with one big toy box, they were always dumping everything to find the ONE thing they wanted at the bottom of the box.

2) Put a limit on the number of toys that can be out at a time. There are days I forget to enforce this rule even now and I ALWAYS regret it. They fuss a lot less if they’re only putting up 5 matchbox cars instead of the whole set of 300.

3) Make picking up a game. Get an egg timer and depending on the amount of the mess, give your child 10 minutes or so to get it picked up. Help at first, but little by little, let your child start to do it alone. If you let them dawdle, they get distracted by creating new games and forget about picking up (especially a problem if you don’t follow rule #2).

4) Start picking up at a reasonable time… 30 minutes before anything that might induce grumpiness naturally, like lunch time, nap time, bed time.

5) Give LOTS of praise when they’re done. Kisses, hugs, clapping… great job! I’m so proud of you… wow you’re a really big kid aren’t you? My kids clean so much better when I do that than when I’m fussing.

Follow those rules consistently now at 2 and it will be much easier on you as your child grows up. Trust me on this, I learned it the hard way!

Shauntelle @ A Beautiful Abode

Actually, it also works with 2 year-olds. The songs, of course, are helpful. But clapping every time she cleans up is a huge motivator. Clapping does not work so well with men, but there are many other things you can do for him.

He actually picks up his toys (I think they taught him that at daycare). The hard part of the picking up process is making sure he doesn’t dump them all out when he’s finished.