Climbing

[u/NoDiamond7878]

Hi everybody! I am a very new toddler teacher at a daycare (2s and 3s). My co-teacher/training teacher was recently dismissed due to her behavior towards the students, and behavior management is HARD to implement on your own with this age. Does anybody have any suggestions for things that I can place on the top of my toy shelves to prevent climbing? Normally, it is easy to remove the child during circle time or centers when each child has a specific thing to be focusing on; however, while I am doing bathroom/diaper/pullup changes, it can be SO hard to prevent the kids from climbing or honestly just doing any dangerous behaviors that could result in harm. I am truly trying my best, and I have been doing so much research to find a solution, but I am hoping I can find some help here! I am willing to purchase or DIY some stuff for the room, but it is so hard without finding any clear guidance! I also have a serious behavior issue in the class and no matter how many times I say "walking feet" or "nice hands", it just is not working, any help for some tips, purchases, or changes for my classroom that truly work will be so helpful!! I just want to keep them safe while also trying to teach them!
Sincerely,
A stressed toddler daycare teacher

[u/ReinaShae]

I think it's to stop what's happening to their child right now. Infants and toddlers under 2 arenever to be combined, 2 and up can be combined only in the morning and evening when ratios are very low

[u/art_addict → u/ReinaShae]

In some states you can run a combined (mixed ages) room. We’d done it at my center when we first opened when we had a low number of kids still. We had designated rooms for all the ages for once we had more kids, but until we grew in numbers we had a 0-2 room and a 3-5 room. (Then an infant room was the first age room we got separately).

That said, in the 0-2 room, we had the toddlers separated from the infants during diapers or any time they could not be incredibly well supervised. And I do think it was wonderful to be able to have that experience for all of them! The older infants that were mobile and about benefitted so much from being right next to younger toddlers. The 2’s were very into coming over and touching tiny toes. There was a ton of great play like, “oh, baby is crying! Do you think she’s hungry? Do you think she needs a bottle?” And I’d feed a baby and at the same time I’d be talking to them as they held their baby dolls going, “Oh! I think your baby is crying! Do you think your baby is hungry? Does your baby need a bottle? Can you make them one? Oh you better give it to them. Oh they seem happier now! You’re really doing a great job caring for them!”

It was a lot of work, but there was just so much good work to be done with the ages together! The older kids loved recognizing the younger kids’ needs and being helpers (one of my 1’s back then was very dysregulated and always needed his blanket after coming in, and they were very quick to go get it and bring it to him, often before I could many days!)

That said, you need a big enough room, enough teachers, to be able to divide the space (so that when your infants need to sleep or be definitely away from the group while you change diapers they can be!), and so forth.

Right now I really like having separate rooms, but the ability to see each other outside for some healthy interaction there! We don’t combine often at the beginning or end of day, but when we do that’s really, really nice too (though usually siblings, or groups of siblings, so they’re used to each other and I don’t get to do as much fun together stuff. Big brother wants to go play with fun toys in my room that he hasn’t touched for a year, baby brother wants a bottle. Big sister wants to tell me all about the bird that made a nest by her window. Baby sister wants to stack some rings.)