Shake Your Sillies Out & the Grouchies!
There are two techniques that I either read about or heard about from another parent. These are “shake your sillies out,” and “grouchies.”
If your little one is being extra silly, not listening, is over stimulated, and you want them to “come back to earth.” You can put on a song, or tell them that they have one minute to “shake their sillies out.” Set the alarm on your phone or on an Alexa or google home, and once they have gone wild for that one minute, hopefully they got it out of their system and are ready to listen, or do whatever it is that you needed in the first place. Raffi has a song called “shake my sillies out,” that will work wonders.
Sometimes, after Nap, Noah is a little cranky, which I totally get. To distract him during a grumpy spell after a nap, or in a store, or during dinner time, we pick his grouchies off of him. These are imaginary nothings on his shirt, pants, or in his hair.
Once you start picking their grouchies off of them, they usually will forget what they were grumpy about in the first place.
After nap, a couple of weeks ago, I asked Noah if he was grouchy. He told me that he had no grouchies on him. It was cute. He even picked some off of my husband one day when he was a little grouchy.
Redirection is key sometimes and these are the two ways that we love to either calm down, or get rid of the grumpiness.