Helping Toddlers to Stay.....

I have given a intire cabinet to my kids. It is the age to explore if you can go and buy some from the thrift store empty or give her old milk jugs or old coffee cans, plastic bottles. You are not teaching her that is okay it is just she finds them interesting maybe she is going to be a movie producer..........lol good luck

It may not be the best solution, but it works for us:
There is one shelf of movies/dvds that the kids can play with and all the rest are off limits. I put just a few on their shelf along with some books and some smaller toys that I don't mind picking up, that really can't get torn or be hurt by small hands. This gives our kids something to play with that resembles mommy and daddy things but that don't really create a mess. It also lets them know some things are okay for them to play with and some things are not.

Now, how did I establish in their minds which shelves were theirs and which were off limits? I took them to the bookshelf and showed them the ones that were okay (yes, you can play with these) and the ones that were off limits (NO TOUCH). When they did touch the off limit ones I spatted their hand. After the third time all I have to do is look and they don't touch.

I have a 3 year old and a 1 year old. I introduced the shelf to each of them when they were able to get around on their own (crawling) and were able to "explore" :)

Hi A.,

My fourteen month old son also loves to move our DVDs, all around the living room, every day. We began saying "Pick up!" a few months ago, and cheering loudly when he would put a DVD back on (or near to) the shelf. Now, with almost anything he plays with, if we say "Pick up!" and cheer, he will place his toy back in the basket or near to it. It isn't perfect, but it's teaching him to clean up and it's much easier to put DVDs or toys up if they're piled near the shelf or box. Good luck!

Move them! She is only 10 months old so she may not connect that she shouldn't play with them since she has already been able to or has already had acces to them! A ten month old has an attention span of 3 seconds and if you have things down in front of her she will forget unless you are constantly showing her not to and that takes alot of diligence and patience so I think unless you have the time to stay on top of her you should move them!

Hi A., I have a 16 month old and an almost 3 year old. Mine do the same things. I started the clean up song. Just start saying clean up and get her to help you put them back. Make it fun. You will be cleaning up for the rest of childhood so get used to making it fun with them helping you!!

I hope this helps
K. S

my daughter did the same thing. what worked for us was to take them out of the cases and put them in a cd/dvd case and put the case where she couldn't reach

You will have to put them out of reach and/or eyesight until your child is older, about 15 months. Then you can begin to just set consistent boundaries. We have a CD/DVD tower and my oldest son just turned it around backwards so that the baby forgot they were there. Good Luck!

we've taken the path of telling our little one she can't play with dvds or cds. i think it would be like handing someone a box of cookies and telling them not to eat them. : ) it will be many months before she understands that she can only do part of the fun of a dvd case - they are supposed to be figuring things out at this stage and scolding her for figuring out how the case works seemed to us to send the wrong message - we now remind our toddler that those aren't her toys and ask her to get a toy instead.
good luck!

Hi A., I had the same problem with my son when he was about that age! It didn't matter how much I got on to him. He would give me a devilish look and go right back to them. I finally just gave up and moved them behind a chair where they were out of reach. Now he's almost two and they are back out in the open and he never bothers them! Good luck!

My son loved to move the DVD's around as well. What I did was show him how to put them back the way they were, or close anyway. As he got older, he would do that to most everything that was in bulk like that...make it a learning tool!
Hope this helps :>

A 10 month does not reason like an adult..... she thinks you are playing a game with her.... which is exactly what any baby/toddler would think. I suggest moving them up out of her reach and anything thing else that you don't want to be moving all the time.... in a few years she will know how to reason and what conseguences are.. for now she is just "watching blocks fall down and being picked back up" perfectly normal for her age.

I had the same problem. I had to move my dvds to my office so she wouldn't get into them.

When I had the problem of my toddlers getting into things that they were not supposed to, I started putting the things they weren't supposed to touch out of their reach. I think you need to put the DVDs up away from where she can reach them. Moving them does not send a message that it is ok for her to play in them, but instead removes temptation from her reach. I think that at 10 months she is too young to understand that she is not supposed to play in them and she continues to play with them because she enjoys it. When you move the DVD's out of her reach, you could put some of her toys on the shelf where they were. This would allow her to reach for and gain control of toys she is allowed to play with instead of the dvd's she is not. It will also save you some major headaches with having to clean them up everyday and will ease your frustration level allowing you to feel more like playing with your daughter. Enjoy her while she is little - they grow up so fast.