Comment by oblio
4 hours ago
Do whatever it takes to handle things, but for this:
> My wife and I BARELY have time to go grocery shopping
If you can, take them grocery shopping with you. One parent stays at home doing stuff, the other goes grocery shopping with at least one kid.
In my experience kids at least 12-18 months old LOVE grocery shopping.
Get a big shopping cart, put them in that special seat facing you. Keep it concise, don't shop for more than 1 hour per round. Talk to them, explain what you're doing, give them harmless things to play with (a carrot, a celery bulb, a bag of rice, whatever). Have a little fun with the produce, they will love random things, for example that weird looking tomato.
It becomes even easier as they grow a bit.
Works with some kids but not all. All these threads always end up “I’m shocked that someone else has a different life than me!”
In my experience routine trumps almost everything. And considering language learning, religion, accents, etc, routine probably trumps everything, period.
I've seen enough parents carting bored kids through supermarkets, while walking sullenly and silently, to know that some people aren't even trying.
My daughter used to love sitting in the cart while perusing the books they sold at Costco. But maybe we didn't buy enough, they don't seem to carry many anymore!
But wait, where's the iPad in all this? /s