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Home › Articles › Toddlers › Toddler Touches

Toddler Touches

Fun Ways to Decorate and Create a Kid-friendly Space

By Sue Poremba

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A User-friendly Room
The toddler's bedroom is an excellent place to encourage your child to be more independent in a safe environment. To do this, make sure the room's furniture and storage facilities are child-sized.

Luthringshausen says parents should take advantage of scaled-down furniture for their toddler's room. "It's not only cute, but most pieces can be used for a few years," she says. "My daughter has a mini chaise and a bookshelf in her room. She loves to go to her room and lounge with a board book."

To help teach your toddler to clean up her toys, Lesneski suggests using colorful bins, boxes and crates that can be easily stacked. "Make sure the openings are large enough so little hands can easily drop things in or pull things out," she says. "Consider using each bin or crate for different collections, since toddlers love to collect things. Parents can use the bins to teach color, shapes and textures by helping their toddler sort their toys or collections accordingly."

In the closet, put a bar a few feet from the floor or put hooks and pegs at toddler height so your child can hang up his own jacket or pick out his clothes each day.

"Have a 'magic' lamp by the child's beside," Lesneski says. "Since toddlers love to turn things on and off, find a lamp where the on/off/brighter is done by touching the base. Placing the magic touch lamp by their bed provides a sense of security as well. The child can easily reach over and turn on a light without getting out of bed or fumbling with a switch."

Creating a Special Place
"A functional and decorative touch for a toddler's room would be to personalize it somehow," says Jamie Lentzner of Foster City, Calif. "You can purchase decorative letters in a theme, or a room plaque, use paint pens to write their name on the wall, sponge letters or even stencil."

Lentzner, mother of two young children, discovered that personalizing the child's room can be a good way to teach letters and spelling.

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