Originally Posted by mamamanda:
Thank you for the ideas. I like the hoola hoop idea a lot. I used to do this with blankets & each child had their own, but it still felt like such a fight to get those 2 to stay on the blanket. I guess I need to be consistent with TO if they get up. How long do you set your timer for when you do this? Just curious. I really want to give it a good try again 
I do one minute per year. My 3yo gets 3 minutes. My 2yo turns 3 next month so he gets 3 minutes and my 1yo turns 2 next month so he gets 2 minutes. I try not to choose time out unless I'm at my wits end. I usually make them my buddy and they get to sit and watch me in the kitchen, or whatever task I am doing, until they calm down and are ready to play since timeout makes them more mad and harder to calm down. Where watching me do something boring and they can't play allows them to relax so I can talk about how we treat our friends or toys or whatever made them my buddy in the first place. It usually just takes a warning of being my buddy or the count of 1..2...3... For them to redirect their attention. Long process but has worked well and is a lot more calm here