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Getting 2 1 year olds to get along.

post #1 of 4
Thread Starter 

I have an 18 month old daughter who does wonderfully with older children but I've recently started watching another little girl similar in age during the day and all hell breaks loose. My daughter kicks and screams and cries and tries to push and hit the other little girl. I don't know what to do. It's been three weeks and it hasn't gotten any better. Is there anything I can do to help them get along?!


post #2 of 4
I didn't want your question to go unanswered. There's really no great answer. You know the old saying, "In a toddlers world, what's mine is mine and what's yours is mine." And, when you get 2 mini-humans together with this same mentality there's bound to be problems. Plus, everyone's got a personality and some times 2 personalities just don't mesh, even at the age of 1.

There's just a good chance that these 2 won't be able to play together at this age. Maybe the best way (if it's important that they be together) is just focus on parallel play. 2 sets of crayons and 2 coloring books at opposite ends of the table.

Good luck.
post #3 of 4
Kids that age don't play together, they do parallel play, as the PP said. Also, whatever someone else is touching is the most interesting thing in the room and what they want. Until they get a little older, they'll need lots of oversight, because they'll want to take things from each other. You can start using terminology like taking turns and that, but it will take a while before they'll understand it.
post #4 of 4

I have twins, and at that age, we did not leave them alone together for 30 seconds. If we did, someone would get hit, bitten, toys stolen, or a block thrown at his head. DH and I literally "tagged off", so we knew who was in charge of supervision. When I was home alone with them, I would bring one of them to the bathroom with me.


It eventually did get better, but for several months - after they became mobile and before they figured out how to play together - it simply required constant vigilance to keep everyone safe. Parallel play is the key - and a few feet of distance between them!


Two of everything helped, but often they still wanted the item the other baby had - even if they looked exactly the same to me.

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