Is your beloved child on a toddler leash? Well, maybe they should be.
I know that this is a bit of a heated topic: Whether others think you treat your child like a dog or not.
But those sweet humans who are judging, don’t understand that toddlers are created to EXPLORE and to PUSH BOUNDARIES!
They will not stay in a stroller, when they have 2 hands, 2 feet, and 2 eyes that can see that there is so much to learn if they can just get out of that contraption!
And when they finally get out, probably by promising to hold their parent’s hand. . . they will begin to immediately form a plan on how to escape that hand.
They will want to run ahead, stop and touch something nasty on the ground, pick up rocks (lots and lots of rocks) or any other amazing and fascinating thing that comes into their peripheral.
Taking a toddler out is not fun for parents.
It’s just not.
We have these ideas, that our precious child will ‘love the Zoo!’ for instance.
This vision of us holding her up to feed the giraffe, or for him copying the monkeys. . . while those moments may happen, there is a lot of walking, and a lot of back-tracking with the toddler, that wears this mommy out!
There may be dangers involved, check out this article about the controversial leash for kids
Why I needed a rope leash for my 3 year old.
Then came this day.
I took my kids to the store.
My 3 year old was being super cute. He drove in the car-shaped cart, chose which ice cream we were going to have. . . then we went out to the car.
I am unlocking the door, with groceries in hand, and with him right next to me. Then he decides he wants to run back to the store for the candy I didn’t let him have.
Without warning, he just turns and books it! Right where a big suburban was driving! I screamed. . . continued screaming for him to stop, as I ran as fast as I could after him. The suburban saw me and stopped. My toddler finally understood that this was serious, and he stopped, and I was able to save him.
But it shook me to the core. it’s impossible to hold his hand every second. And all it took was a second.
That night I went on Amazon and I bought a backpack with a leash on it.
And he wears it whenever we are in a public place. And it’s great.
Just to be clear though. The harness does not mean you can ignore you child. I am always aware of what he’s doing. This stops you, as a parent, from accidentally dragging him around unsafely. Or if (when) the child wants to spin around and get it caught under his neck, you must be always aware so you can keep the rope de-tangled for the safety of your child.
What Toddler Leash to look for:
There are quite a few options on amazon. I scrolled through a bunch to find what I wanted.
- First. It needs to have a strap across the chest, so that he can’t just slide out of it. and that stops him safely.
- Second. The leash hook should (in my opinion) be in the middle, about where his shoulder blades are. I say this, not because of any tests that have been done, so maybe i’m wrong, but I’ve seen other parents have the ‘high’ leash, and you have to pull ‘up’ to stop the child from being yanked back, or if the child trips, pulling up doesn’t help as much. I really don’t like the ones where the leash is put low, that makes the child fall forward a lot.
This is a simple, and cheap toddler harness.
Toddler Backpacks with Leashes
But I like the ones with backpacks, because kids LOVE to put things inside other things. So you will have a lot less fighting if he’s allowed to wear his backpack filled with his toys. Also, I just tuck the leash into it when i’m not using it.
My boy loves super heroes. So we got him one with bat wings. He adores batman, so he’s happy with it, and we didn’t have to pay more for a character brand.
A Toddler Leash can be a great asset for your family. Just make sure you use it wisely.
An easy, gentle tug will keep them from falling over, and keep them moving with you, hold the leash firmly close to you when they start tripping, so they can use it to get back into balance, and helps them have enough freedom to (hopefully) not complain too much.
May the odds ever be in your favor.