"play time"

We've started enforcing a new thing called "play time" at our house. Thanks to this super mom who babysat B one afternoon. Seriously, in a matter of a 30 minute conversation w/ this woman, I think I learned more things from her than I have thus far since being a mom. She had so many great rules and ideas and the way she taught her kids was amazing. And no, she's not old and wise. Well, definitely wise! But she may be my age, if not younger. ?? Anyways...she gave me the idea of this "play time" for her kids she said it especially helped when she had her 2nd child.

She started off every morning after breakfast telling her young (then less than a year old) son that it was "play time". She would take him to his room and put the baby gate up. She would set the timer (starting at 15 minutes) and made him play by himself. At first he cried at the gate and only wanted out. But she knew he could handle crying for 15 minutes. Every day it got better and soon she would say "play time" and he would run off to his room to play. She began increasing the time by 5 minutes as time went on. Soon, the timer would go off after 3o min and he would continue playing on his own. Eventually (he's almost 3 now), she got to the point where she could tell him it was "play time" and she didn't even need to put up the gate.

Basically what this does is it teaches your child to play and entertain his/herself for a certain period of time.
This is something that really helped her when she had her 2nd child. She could tell her son to go to "play time" so that she could get rest herself and/or just concentrate on the baby and not be disturbed.

Well needless to say, I LOVED this idea and began to implement it right away. Yes, B did cry at first, but it really did not take but a few days for him to understand what it meant. Just a few minutes ago, before I sat down to write this, I told him it's "play time" and he went straight to his room and didn't fuss/cry at all. He even loves to "help" me put up the baby gate to his room. He is now almost up to 30 minutes already on playing on his own.
**He still goes to the gate and talks to me to make sure I'm still out her, but regardless I just talk back so he doesn't think I'm not there and that he's alone. Then off he goes back to playing...

One thing I do suggest, if you're reading this and decide to do it, is don't make it a bad thing. Make it sound exciting that they get to have "play time". It's NOT a time out. Even when Breeson would be crying at the door the first few days, I would go to his door, and say excitedly (maybe a little too much!) how it's fun to play with toys and remind him of how much time was left (even if he doesn't understand time yet).
We decided to try this right as he was beginning to start day care (3 days/week), so I was worried that since we weren't doing it consistently every day, he would be thrown off. But so far he hasn't been. We only implement it when we're home - even on Sunday mornings. Last Sunday, it got really quiet and we went to see if he was okay...he had fallen asleep on the floor playing in his room.