Have you ever wondered if there was a trick to setting limits with babies and toddlers? And what do rules + limits even look like for youngest humans? Learning for to effectively set limits with babies is essential for our babies to feel the safe and secure within their environment!
So here’s what I can tell you after my experience working with babies and toddlers over the last decade in both the home and schooling environments.
While infants and toddlers are unconscious learners, they are ALWAYS making connections about their world and who they are to it.
And that includes how they interact with their parents + caregivers. And furthermore how they interact with their home and school environments.
Consider this idea: The child finds a sense of security within the consistency of the purposeful limits implemented by their loving parents and caregivers. And this security drives the child to reap the benefits of their freedom within those limits
(Freedom within limits is a Montessori concept that promotes setting purposeful limits but also allowing the child to freely explore and “be” within those purposeful limits.)
Here are my 5 Best Tips to Effectively Set Limits with Babies and Toddlers.
1. Be Consistent
Consistency is everything when it comes to setting limits with our tiniest humans. Our babies are tiny scientists and are always testing and experimenting to see what they are able to do.
So a big tip to implementing purposeful limits with babies and toddlers is to know which limits you want to set and be consistent with implementing them. This will show your baby that this limit will always be there. And they end up finding security within that limit. They will know to expect and trust that limit.
2. Be Purposeful
We typically implement rules and limits with babies and toddlers to keep our babies safe + others safe. So it’s important to be incredibly purposeful when implementing consistent limits with your child.
For example: you may have a limit that your child can not throw sand at the park. Why? Well because it can get in others eyes. Ouch!
So talk to them about the purpose behind certain limits. And try to begin this even when they’re babies. Because even though they can’t verbalize their responses just yet, they’re always learning!
3. Use Positive Redirection
Positive redirection has been my life saver to implementing limits with children birth – 3 years.
And this is because it shows them what they CAN do with an action.
So say your child has a tendency to hit and hits you. You can redirect to something they CAN hit, like a drum.
PS…. I use this tactic all day every day when working with Infants + Toddlers. ️
4. Talk Through the Moment
Since limits are typically set to keep our kids safe + others safe, we may have a rule that our babies can’t climb on top of their table (so they don’t fall and hit their head).
That said, when our sweet babies get fixated on something (like climbing said table) they may get upset at the redirection.
So my advice is to talk them through the moment. Talking about the experience is essential to having a healthy emotion acknowledgement and then redirection.
So I may say something like this: “I see that made you upset. You can fall and hit your head if I let you climb that table. If you want to climb something, you can climb the slide outside. Let’s go climb the slide!”
(Or something like that )
5. Try To Get on the Same Page With All Adults in the Environment
I can not tell you how essential this tip is to implementing limits with babies or toddlers in a home or school environment.
If one adult sets that purposeful limit regarding the child climbing on the table, but another adult allows the child to climb on the table, it can be super confusing for a baby or toddler (especially since they’re concrete learners).
And since our babies and toddlers find security within the consistency of their limits, it’s important to have everyone on the same page.
It may even be helpful to write a list of the purposeful limits that have been set in the environment! This way all the adults in the space can implement them consistently, therefore making it much more straight forward for your baby to learn. 🙂
I hope that these tips are helpful to your daily practice with your baby + toddler, friend! Let me know how it goes in the comments below.
Xoxo,
Bianca, Your Baby Tour Guide