Parenting

10 Must-Know Facts About Toddlers

by Nicole Leigh Shaw
Updated: 
Originally Published: 
A toddler with blond hair crying with his mouth wide open.
Baby crying

Rejoice parents! You now have toddlers, those bundles of budding humanity. Constant whining has replaced that urgent baby cry. They mostly sleep through the night these days, but when they don’t it’s no longer because they need a good burping or a diaper change. Toddlers have needs and desires that, even when addressed directly and precisely to the letter of their demands, are all wrong you dumb cow.

1. If your baby is a thumb-sucker (read: self-soother) you’ll rejoice until you one day realize that you can take away the pacifier but the kid carries that thumb everywhere.

2. If your baby is a pacifier baby, you will wait too long to take it away and convincing Susie that the baby ducklings at the pond need all her pacis will elicit the same reaction from her that beating ponies with puppies would.

3. Handing a toddler a broken cookie is like handing her a tantrum grenade.

4. So his shoes are on the wrong feet. Deal with it. You have a bigger battle ahead over the sleeveless top and dirty training pants he insists on wearing to Caregiver and Me Music Class in February.

5. You’re all ready to go to that doctor’s appointment, right? Wrong. Junior took a pit stop in the splash and play fun room otherwise known as the hall bath. And look, your car keys don’t float!

6. Parents of toddlers are to mental health professionals what year-end bonuses are to salesmen.

7. Even if the restaurant does have highchairs and booster seats, resist the urge to dine out with your toddler. You’ve heard the phrase like oil and water? Like IHOP and toddlers.

8. Christ was tested in the desert by Satan. You will be tested in the grocery store by a preschooler. You will discover that you are not Christ.

9. Young children love to play in the bath unless they are actually dirty.

10. Because toddlers throw all their food on the floor, animal shelters are able to unload dogs on young families.

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