Tiny Human Upgrades

Reasons for the tiny human upgrades:

I was sick of the mess and the necessity

Our little people spend all their time looking up, using step stools, or asking for a boost. Everything is just out of reach, and for most things probably that’s ok, but as independence develops it might be nice to provide them with some independence-promoting upgrades.

Our little 3-year-old has been asserting her independence at every turn. Whether it’s getting dressed, getting her own cutlery, or putting on her shoes she can do it herself! We all know our job as parents is to prepare our children for the adult world. Our whole job is to teach them to function without our constant assistance and input. This got me thinking, how could I adapt our environment to better suit our child?

I’m in no way an expert here. If there’s one thing you can be sure of, it’s that I am flying by the seat of my pants. I’m an unintentional gentle parent who turned on a dime the after the first week of brining my baby home. Crib wasn’t ready right away? Who cares, I’m holding my baby for naps and nighttime anyways. Planned to nurse until 1, well throw that out too, here we are at almost 4 just finally weaning the night feeds. I parent in some combination of gentle, Montessori, parent-guided, child-led hybrid style that pretty much only guarantees to keep my husband on his toes. All that said, I’ve found some things that have worked for our little that might work for yours too.

In the interest of creating space in our home for our child, I thought of ways to temporarily and cost-effectively adapt our spaces. Things I considered were, where are the areas she:

• Struggles the most
• Wants to help most often
• Frequents

A couple of areas I thought of were:

• Kitchen, she wants to help us and help serve herself
• Bathroom, being able to easily access all the things she needs for a successful, (mostly) parent-free experience
• Front Entrance, spaces to allow her to access and put away her frequently used items

Kid level towel