The wonderful thing about blanket time is that I have found it's effects spilling over to other situations. By now, Will knows he can't leave the blanket during BT. However, he will continue to test me almost every time, as most toddlers like to do! All I have to do is tell him in a slightly firm voice that he needs to stay on the blanket. He sits back down. I notice this obedience has helped in situations when we are outside, for instance. If I tell him to stop walking, he will [most of the time!!] look back at me and stop walking. Or if I tell him not to touch something, he will acknowledge what I said and stop touching [usually!].
But by far, the best situation BT has helped is when we did swimming lessons these past few weeks. We always arrived at lessons 10-15 minutes before class started. Brooke immediately went into the little kiddie pool and play around before class. Buddy didn't care for the kiddie pool so we had about 10-15 minutes to kill--time that preferably that didn't entail me chasing him all over the swimming complex hoping he wouldn't dive into one of the pools. The answer: A "modified" BT! I put down his towel and said (just like I do at BT), "Stay on the blanket, please!" When I did that, I never once had to chase him around the pool. He just sat there happily playing with my phone or eating his snacks. He completely understood that his "barrier" was the towel, just as the blanket is at home.
I have been very excited to see that BT has been paying off in other areas. This is not to say that I have a perfect, obedient angel! What a joke!! He's 16 months old--get real. But I do see that when I devote time and energy into doing BT daily, that I reap the rewards in other areas.
Here he is doing "Towel Time" at swimming lessons, waiting for his sister:
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