Trick or treating with a toddler can be tricky business, mainly because toddlers have no idea what the hell is going on. “Why is everybody dressed up in weird outfits?” “Why does everything taste so delicious?” “Why can’t I shove everything into my mouth all at once?”
If it’s your first time taking a toddler door-to-door begging for candy, here are ten things I learned when I took Mazzy for the first time. I’ll be keeping them all in mind when I attempt to bring Harlow around this Friday night.
1) You may think your toddler has no idea what candy is and you are introducing them to the concept of caramel and chocolate for the first time, but you are mistaken. Knowing Skittles are tasty is instinctual. Knowing that chocolate exists underneath the silver foil of a Hershey Kiss is the same as knowing you want to suck your mother’s breast when you first exit the womb. Love of candy is something we are born with. What I’m saying is, you can’t fool toddlers into thinking they don’t want it— THEY WANT IT.
2) Toddlers like to get candy and eat it on the spot. Don’t waste time trying to get them to wait until you get home. “Waiting till later” is a concept toddlers will understand shortly after the Theory of Relativity.
3) Your toddler is probably too busy grabbing easy-to-reach lollipops and brightly-colored Laffy Taffy, to notice the best stuff (like Butterfingers and Kit Kats) are often buried at the bottom. Sometimes you have to quit worrying “what the adults think” and reach your hand into the candy bowl to grab a Twix for YOURSELF.
4) If you are trick or treating with more than one toddler, “Who Rings The Doorbell” is as important to the enjoyment of Halloween as what they are wearing. Be prepared to divert, distract and enforce the fine art of “taking turns”.
5) One out of every ten toddlers will go as “Child Of A Mom Who Didn’t Love Me Enough To Ignore My Massive Tantrum And Forced Me To Wear My Dinosaur Costume Anyway”.
6) Toddlers are an excellent way to check out your neighbors’ homes, since they are used to running through a door when it is opened for them. Make a huge show of calling your child back, knowing full well he/she won’t listen. Then, make sure to act genuinely “embarrassed” and “apologetic” when you have to run inside to retrieve your unruly child. (So THAT’S what an eat-in kitchen looks like! Is that a Viking stove??)
7) A toddler’s first experience with candy can be a little disgusting. Try not to gag when your kid reaches her chocolate saliva covered hand into someone else’s candy bowl. Or when you have to pull a lollipop out of your child’s hair and then watch her continue to eat it. You must embrace the stickiness. Even if it is covered in hair.
8) Twenty minutes into trick or treating, when your two-year-old throws a massive tantrum in the middle of the street, kicking her dinosaur legs on the ground— instead of yelling, “WHAT? WHAT IS IT? YOU HAVE ALL THE CANDY YOU COULD POSSIBLY WANT!!!! I DON’T UNDERSTAND!!!”, try reaching your finger into her mouth and picking out the huge clump of Tootsie Roll lodged between her molars. Just a guess.
9) Do not dress your child up as Elmo unless he/she is comfortable with the attention that comes from pop idol status. My daughter once attacked a random child in an Elmo costume from behind. He started crying, she started screaming and Sesame Street was forever ruined.
10) Once your child knows about candy, there is no going back. I recommend letting your toddler eat as much as they want on the night of Halloween and then telling them they won’t be getting any candy after that. Trying to get a toddler to understand a slow rationing over several weeks will break even the strongest parent. Plus, this way, you can hide the leftovers and eat them all yourself.
GOOD LUCK!
————————————
Upload your Halloween photos to the Mommy Shorts Facebook Fanpage. I’m be posting my favorites all week!
Quinn’s first Halloween that we took her out (she was 14 months) we left the candy bag too close to her and she manage to get out a Crunch bar. I didn’t think much of it since she obviously couldn’t open it, then I heard “Mmmm *crinkle* mmmmmm *crinklecrinkle” from the back seat. She had eaten through the wrapper to get to it. At least she made a good choice.
On her first experience of Trick or Treating, my granddaughter, Kaidance, would exclaim “THEY GAVE ME CANDY”, after E.V.E.R.Y. house she went to! So cute.
#5 for sure. My daughter picked out an owl costume last year (she looooves owls) and then on Halloween through the most massive tantrum ever when I tried to put it on her. So she went out with no costume and the owl went to Goodwill unworn. She is still wary of costumes, so we are trying something simpler this year – just a white lab coat that she can wear with her Fisher Price doctor’s kit toy. And I am not sure I will even succeed at that!
Why do some kids HATE costumes and others want to wear theirs nonstop for all of October?
I will have to keep these in mind next year when we take our little one out for the first time.
I’m taking my 20 month old trick or treating for the first time if it isn’t actually raining or snowing here. If it is, we might go to a nearby mall that has indoor trick or treating. If nothing else, she can play in the play area in her costume with all the other sugar crazed toddlers.
What about the Halloween hangover? November 1st is a rough day….
I took my 17 month old at the time trick or treating last year. This year I have another 17 month old and my daughter is 29 months and has been asking for her costume and candy for a week. Sue understand what trick or treat is and want she gets when she says it. She will be saying trick or treat for the next couple of weeks and expecting a treat in return.
I was recommended this blog via my cousin. I’m now not positive whether this post is written through him as no one else realize such specified about my trouble. You’re wonderful! Thank you!
[…] BONUS: 10 Things You Should Know Before You Take Your Toddler Trick Or Treating […]
Last year was our first year going with our son, and the people at the first house were dressed up and accidentally scared him. He was crying on their porch and and they gave him tons of candy because they felt bad. We probably could have just gone home with our pumpkin half full after one house.
Then he got the hang of it and loved it. Loved it so much that he grabbed his pumpkin in in the morning and went to the door to go again.
[…] is Coming! 36 Awesome Family Costumes Guaranteed to Win your Halloween Costume Contest 10 Things You Should Know Before You Take Your Toddler Trick or Treating Cheap-Ass-Last-Minute-No-Effort Baby Costumes 15 Halloween Costumes for Toddlers that Might be […]
And is particularly often the case most of us match in the everyday life.
Jordan 13 Playoffs http://www.absciexus.com/049/
Last year was our first year going with our son, and the people at the first house were dressed up and accidentally scared him. He was crying on their porch and and they gave him tons of candy because they felt bad. We probably could have just gone home with our pumpkin half full after one house.