My daughter is SPITTING, and she won't stay in a time-out spot. Help!

[Sarah1]

I'm posting this in the toddler forum because I'm really looking for insight from moms of older kids.

I'm hoping this is just a phase--a SHORT phase--but in the last several days, Audrey has started spitting out her milk at lunch and dinnertime. Today she actually spit out some of her food. I think this could have something to do with the fact that she recently learned how to spit during tooth brushing, but that was a few weeks ago. Normally, she's really good about stopping a behavior once I've shown disapproval, but this spitting thing has persisted for several days in a row, and it's really starting to bug me.

The first couple of times she spit, I gave her the benefit of the doubt...figured maybe she'd just sipped more milk than she could swallow, etc etc etc...but since she's done it repeatedly, I know she's doing it because she thinks it's funny.

The last three times she did it, I tried to put her in a time-out (the "naughty corner" I ripped off from Supernanny, since she can jump out of her crib with ease now, which is where I used to put her for any time-outs that we do). This is kind of new for us, since Audrey is generally pretty compliant and we haven't needed to do a lot of time-outs. The last three times I've put her in the corner, she just leaves the corner. She just won't stay there. I've tried both having her stand there and having her sit on a little stool. She starts crying and just walks off and tries to go play with her toys, books, etc. And at other, random, points of the day, she'll say "Audrey go to naughty corner" like it's a novelty...I'm just not sure what I should do! Should I just keep putting her back in the corner until she gets the picture, even if it takes an hour?? I'm just not sure what is appropriate for a child her age. We really don't have an empty room, or a stairway, or any other place we could put her.

So I guess I have two issues...one is the spitting; the other is that I can't get her to stay in a time-out spot (aka naughty corner).

Help??

[lisams]

DD who is also 27 months just started this, and it also started when we taught her to "rinse and spit" after brushing. It's so annoying and I have no advice, so hopefully someone here will!

For time out, I baby gate DD into the laundry room. It's small and she can't get out. I walk away and then come back after a minute. It's worked very well so far, since there is no way she can get out and the laundry room is very boring. Is there a small room you could put a gate up to that she couldn't get out of?

Sorry I don't have much advice, hoping others will though!

Lisa

[Sarah1]

Lisa--I'm glad to know Audrey isn't the only one!

I think I came up w/a solution similar to what you're doing--just yesterday Audrey started sleeping in her "big girl" bed and we put up a gate in the very short hallway that leads into her bedroom on one side and the small laundry area on the other side. I think next time we do "time out" I will put her behind the gate. She HATES being confined behind a gate so I think that will work much better than trying to contain her in an open space.

Thanks for the words of reassurance!!!! Let's hope our little spitters stop spitting :)

[egoldber]

My DD spits sometimes too, but it has never become a recurring problem (knock on wood!). I put her in her room for time out, and that works well for us. That way I just shut the door and she is fine in there.

HTH,

[christic]

For Alice at least, just ending a meal once we get to 3 works much better than trying to do time outs while eating. By the time she's pulling stuff like that (spitting, dumping food on the table, etc) she's usually not that hungry anyway, and it at least prevents repeats of the same behavior during the same meal. This certainly doesn't work for everyone though--we have friends whose son started announcing he was done with dinner by whipping food across the room. So proceed with caution :).

Good luck!

Chris

[Sarah1]

I'm happy to report that for the time being, Audrey is no longer spitting. She pretty much stopped doing it the day after I posted...seems whenever I post about a behavior issue it resolves itself right after I post...that seems to be the solution!!

As for the time-out spot, I think I've found a better place. We put up a gate right outside the little hallway leading into DD's room. She HATES being confined behind a gate, so I think the next time she needs to go into time out we will put her in the little hallway. We'll see how it goes.

Thanks for the insights. I appreciate it.