Buying toddler toys...Christmas is around the corner and with it comes that silly season when everyone pushes their credit cards to the hilt to buy gifts for family and friends. I suspect, though, with the current downward economic trends spending is not going to be as high as in previous years.

For moms who choose to leave their careers to raise their children at home, living on one income can be a challenge. They too do not have loads of spare cash to spend on this once a year event.

Personally, I also feel that children under 3 should spend more time using their imaginations and less time playing on computers and with other plastic toys. But we all love giving gifts to our little ones, especially when we see their faces light up with joy.

The focus of this article is thus how to choose the best toys for your toddler and how to organize and manage the resulting issues around this.

The best parenting tip that I can give you with regards to buying toys for your toddler is that you need to choose something that can grow and adapt with your toddler. Toys that are multi-purpose are also wonderful. Toys that can morph in different circumstances are also winners!

Take a look at the toy reviews on my site for specific age groups:

Toys for 1 year olds
Toys for 2 year olds
Toys for 3 year olds

Organizing toys so that they are easily sorted will save you and your tot lots of frustrating moments. From the time they are able to make a mess they are also able to clean it up. But this is not something that you can instruct a 2 year old and then walk away. They need to have you alongside them to help them. In fact I still help my 6 year old with his cleaning up.

As you work together you have the chance to model working without complaining and having a good attitude over cleaning up messes.

Two good quotes to remember are:

“A place for everything and everything in it’s place”

And

”Touch something once” (Simplistically this means that when you pick up the Duplo block put it away in the proper place the first time)

Take a look at my toy storage tips for more help.

Character building activity

When my first child was very young she used to love Barney. It was the only TV she ever watched for ½ hr a day. My other children never took to him as much. But we all remembered and used a song he used to sing when it came to clean up time. Perhaps you can teach this to your toddler and sing it together when it’s clean up time:

“Clean up, clean up
Everybody, everywhere
Clean up, clean up
Everybody do your share”

Take a listen to it here

Bible link for moms

Perhaps you don’t model a good attitude when it comes to cleaning up in the house. There are always so many things for a mom to do when they have little ones. Believe me I remember the days when I could barely keep my eyes open due to a bad night with a newborn but still had toddlers to care for and a house to clean and meals to prepare.

But all of a sudden your little ones are big and can bath and feed themselves and gosh…perhaps even clean up without your help. But in the meantime the bulk of the work falls to you.

So how do you keep a happy heart and countenance when everything inside you is yelling for your bed or a clean house for just a day? Character! This is the thing that helps you keep going when things are tough. God placed in you a will that is designed to serve you. The will is what you draw on to endure in tough times, to do the right thing and to make the right choices.

Meditate on: 1 Corinthians 15:58 “So, my dear brothers and sisters, be strong and able. Always work enthusiastically for the Lord, for know that nothing you do for the Lord is ever useless.”

And in my favourite movie character’s words (Dorey from Finding Nemo) somedays you have to “just keep on swimming” even when you don’t want to!

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