Tricks to get your baby to ________

[Bec caV]

(I'm in a new thread mode today!)

But okay, share some insight. What tricks did you use to get your baby to do something?

With feeding solids, I got John Gabriel to do it by letting him hold the spoon. Since he's so independent he had his breakthrough by thinking he was doing it himself.

The best thing I found to encourage him to keep crawling.... I put some marbles in a plastic two liter bottle and super glued the cap on there. It rolls away from him, but the marbles keep it from rolling too far. Plus he loves the noise and watching the marbles roll around inside.

[H.Starr]

Aww, I haven't had to be a trickster so far. We're just repetitive. Roman catches on to everything pretty quick, so after we do it a few times, he pretty much has it down. I show him, he looks at me like I'm crazy, I show him again, he starts to get interested, I show him again, he starts trying it himself. Sometimes that's it, sometimes one more time showing him and then he's got it.

Except when he gets stubborn and just doesn't WANT to do something. Like drink from a sippy cup. He CAN, he just WON'T.
Brat.

[freckles]

Great thread!
Brushing teeth: We humm a song while my kids are brushing to make sure they brush each section long enough. While rinsing, i make them twirl around 3 times in a circle to make sure they rinse adequately.

To get my kids to wash their own hair I tell them to pretend their fingers are spiders and let their fingers crawl everywhere. To look up while rinsing hair, I tape a picture to the ceiling and tell them to look at it.

Getting ready for school chart: Two weeks before my dd started kindergarten, I wrote a simple list, in order, of everything we needed to do for getting ready for school. Like go potty, get dressed, bfast, grab backpack, etc. I drew out the sections on a poster paper according to our list and let her draw everything in order. This helped her develope a great routine that we still follow to this day.

[j-love]

A trick I use to get baby girl to sit still for a few minutes and not notice I left the room is to put on 'Blue's Clue's' or 'Yo Gabba Gabba'. It gives me just enough time to throw a load of laundry in or load/unload the dishwasher until she turns to look for me.

[ra11en]

I found the best way to get Alena to go potty when we were potty training (she never wanted to stop what she was doing to go potty) was tell her I was going to get there first and started racing. She would giggle up a storm and take off running to beat me in there so she could go potty before me. Of course I always let her win, and it worked every time. She never caught on that Mommy never actually went potty any of those times.

To get her to finish any meal, I tell her she can feed Mommy a bite after every bite she takes. She loves feeding me and Daddy, no idea why.

Its not always us tricking her into things though, she's got her own tricks! She's learned that when she wants something for just a few more minutes (i.e. tv time, playtime before bedtime, playing in sprinkler outside, etc) she says "Just a little bit, 5 more minutes, set the timer". Its so cute, she has such a serious face and holds up both her hands indicating a little bit! We have a timer on our stove that I'll set and when it goes off she is very cooperative and non-argumenative. What does 5 more minutes of anything hurt? We always fall for it.

[freckles]

To get my 2 yr old to put his shoes on the correct foot, I drew a heart on both shoes, on the inner side of the sole, and told him to "make the hearts kiss." I guess drawing lips or smiley faces would be better.

[AllBlueZoo]

Taking Notes here. There are alot of good ideas in there.

[brandie1127]

A trick I use to get baby girl to sit still for a few minutes and not notice I left the room is to put on 'Blue's Clue's' or 'Yo Gabba Gabba'. It gives me just enough time to throw a load of laundry in or load/unload the dishwasher until she turns to look for me.

Ava loves yo gabba gabba!

To eat off a spoon I make the "vroom vroom" noise like a car and she smiles then I fill her mouth with food! Sneaky mommy - how'd that get in there!

To teach her to roll over I let her hold on to my finger and then rolled her over after doing this a few times she was well on her way rolling all over the place.

[jolee.marie]

great thread. i too am taking notes.

i would let sophie hold my fingers when she was learning to roll and after a couple times she got it and rolled herself.

i use my feet to get her to crawl or scoot towards me (she loves my toes)

i also do the air plane when she is eating to get her to open up.

[nkrumpfer]

When I can't get my daughter to listen I tell her to look for puppies. There are always dogs everywhere, whether they are stuffed, real, or pictures.

I can never get her in her carseat so I tell her we're going to go see horses and she sits right down. I just make sure I drive down the road that the horse farms on and stop on the side so she can check them out