Jo Frost's Toddler Rules: Routines Rule
Shortly after our sons 1st birthday (September 2017) my husband and I were feeling a bit overwhelmed. Our little guy was adorable and hitting all his milestones, but he still wasn’t sleeping through the night. We were co-sleeping and it wasn't working anymore. We were ready to transition him to his own bed in his own room but weren’t sure how to go about it. So, we decided to read a book about the toddler years to help us manage the transition. After reading many reviews, we finally settled on Jo Frost’s Toddler Rules written by THE Jo Frost, aka the Super Nanny, renowned parenting and childcare expert, and star of Supernanny.
This book changed our lives!
Our biggest takeaway from reading this book was the importance of consistency, routines and making certain that your toddler’s needs are met.
Specifically their need for:
Adequate amounts of sleep
Eating healthy and nutritious foods at the right times during the day
Playing and getting enough mental and physical stimulation
Structure, rules and consistency
Reading this book armed us with the tools we needed to create routines that would ultimately make day to day life easier for us and for our toddler. Within a few weeks, we had a bedtime routine down that resulted in our boy going to sleep without any tears in his very own toddler bed! At the time this was unheard of, every bedtime was a dramatic, tear filled ordeal. Eventually we could get through our routine and then say “good night” to a still awake toddler and leave the room knowing he’d fall asleep on his own in a few minutes.
The lessons in this book had fantastic implications for traveling too! We now know that we absolutely must pre-empt the needs of our guy in every situation. And now we can. We plan really well for a trip and assess any meltdown type of situation by figuring out what our guy needs: rest, food, drink, mental break or physical output. It really has been a life saver. He won't be a good travel buddy if he's tired, hungry or otherwise physically uncomfortable.
I highly recommend this book for any new parents with a soon-to-be toddler on their hands.
Get the book here!