How to Handle a High-Needs Toddler

By eHow Parenting Editor

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When you've got a high-needs toddler, it seems like everyone else's kid is an angel. Your little terror is beating the floor of the supermarket while the other cherubs sit calmly in the shopping cart. It might seem impossible some days to handle a high-needs toddler, but with the right attitude and expectations, you can tolerate and even enjoy your spirited child.

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Instructions

Difficulty: Challenging

Step1

Stick to a routine. If your child is wild, his routine needs to be anything but. Make sure meals and naptimes are at the same time of day, and have a repetoire of stories, games and songs you go through daily. Consistency is comforting and tends to soothe toddlers who are acting out because they feel life is out of control.

Step2

Keep your toddler well fed, well rested and well loved. If you leave the house with a hungry or over-tired little one, you can bank on tantrums galore. Consistent affection in the form of lots of hugs, kisses and cuddling keeps your toddler confident and content.

Step3

Limit the opportunities to say "no!" Baby-proof so you're not always shooing your toddler away from the crystal and have lots of toddler-friendly activities around the house. It's harder to enforce "no" if you have to say it constantly.

Step4

Be consistent about both good and bad behavior. When your toddler behaves, give her lots of praise. When she doesn't say no firmly and remove her from the situation. As she gets older, you can enforce consequences for her misdeeds, like time-outs.

Step5

Throw them in the water when she's really cranky. A bath is great for crabbiness, or bring out the water table and let her experiment with the rubber ducks.

Step6

Emphathize with your toddler when he's melting down. Say, "I know, you're so mad because Mommy said no lollipops." Not only does empathy disarm your toddler, but it reinforces to you that little ones have very strong feelings, just like us.

Step7

Forgive yourself when you lose your patience. With a high-needs toddler, it's bound to happen. You don't need to be perfect to be a good parent. You just need to give your little one lots of love.