4 Reasons Why Consistency Is Important For Toddlers
Once you understand, it makes perfect sense.
Toddlers need consistency.
From the years of experience with my daycare, I’ve noticed it’s especially important at this stage of life and one of the key lessons I took from my Montessori Training.
It’s the most important thing I do to emotionally stabilize and acclimatize the children who come into my care. Even the one-year-old babies can understand a routine if it’s clear and consistent.
Living in an unpredictable world makes toddlers frightened, anxious, frustrated, and angry. Nobody thrives in chaos. This is especially true for toddlers and here are 4 reasons why they need consistency:
- Toddlers need consistency to create memory loops of experiences to draw upon. It gives them reliable data to draw conclusions about life and learn to act upon those conclusions. It allows them to sow the seeds of critical thinking, anticipate consequences, and act accordingly.
- Consistency is orienting. When toddlers can reliably know what their day will look like, they can orient themselves in time. A toddler can’t tell time and has no experience, so time means nothing to them. Consistency allows them to learn to orient themselves in time and begin to understand it.
- Consistency is Calming. When we don’t know what’s going on, we feel scared and anxious. It’s the fear of the unknown. A toddler doesn’t know anything for sure; they have zero life experience. If they have no consistent cues, they won’t know what to expect. When you go to work, you might never come back as far as they know, but if they have a routine, consistent day, they learn to expect certain things at given times. They will see that you leave at a particular moment. If the moments leading to your arrival are predictable, then they’ll feel safe knowing that you will be back at the appointed moment.
- Internal Order. A toddler orders their inner world by using the external world. They take in what’s going on around them and internalize it. Everything they experience in this early phase of life becomes a fundamental and profound part of their psyche. Toddlers living in chaos don’t learn to order their internal world because they have nothing to grasp. Being able to organize your thoughts, actions, and surroundings are all things that stem from being exposed to a consistent environment in toddlerhood.
Having consistency doesn’t mean being a robot or Martha Stewart.
Your house doesn’t have to be perfect, and you don’t have to live by a timer.
It does mean trying to make every day have a similar flow. Doing some things, basically the same way, in the same order every day as much as possible.
Creating a few essential routines around certain activities gives your toddler the cues they need to feel safe, secure and oriented. It also helps them develop critical thinking skills and a sense of time.
In my daycare, we do the same things the same way every day. This helps new children adjust faster, and children with anxiety and other issues stabilize quicker and easier.
Routines around these activities work well:
- Morning, when they first get up
- Morning, when they need their exercise/active time, (between 9–12 exercise/outside free play at this time is crucial).
- Lunch
- Nap
- Afternoon after nap
- Dinner
- Post-dinner, when they need exercise/active time, (between 5–7, exercise/outside free play is crucial at this time).
- Post-exercise wind-down
- Pre-bedtime wind-down
- Bedtime
Create a plan that follows the same path in roughly the same way every day, and your toddler will be happier and more emotionally stable.
They’ll be able to take in more of what they need for their development because they’ll be spending less energy trying to create mental order from outer chaos.
It’s in these years that crucial inner development happens and lifelong habits become internalized. You can give your toddler a great head start if you implement a few simple routines.
It’s good medicine that costs nothing.
You may even find that actually makes life easier for you too.
Thanks for reading!
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