Hellobee

Before A was born, I decided to set up a snack drawer for M in our fridge. She had just learned how to open the fridge door and rather than lock her out, I wanted to work with it, knowing that she would eventually outsmart any childproofing attempts. I had heard from experienced mama friends that their older kids always wanted a snack or something to do right when the new baby was nursing or otherwise making mama incapable of helping, and so my goal was to get M to a more independent stage with snacks, before the baby came along.

I dug through the kitchen and found an unused bin, the kind you’d use for washing dishes if you were camping or somewhere else without running water. It fit into the bottom shelf of the fridge easily. I filled it with the snacks we already had for M, and when she came home from school, introduced her to the concept. It was an immediate hit! She spent that entire night opening the fridge and helping herself to snacks. I had to resist the urge to crack down on her self-serving because I knew it would eventually lose its novelty, and I didn’t want to scare her off of using it.

When we ran out of snacks I took her along on the grocery trip and let her pick out her own items (within reason). This picture is fairly standard for the drawer; there’s usually string cheese, and we don’t often have jello or yogurt that isn’t in a tube. The grapes were left over from breakfast so I stashed them in there because they were already washed. I know it’s a lot of packaging, and it’s certainly not waste-free, but for now it’s the right balance between convenience and best intentions. Maybe as both kids get older and I get more time, we can switch to refillable pouches and tubes!

Most days, M comes home from school and grabs a yogurt tube or an applesauce. She needs me to open them up, but I can easily do that one-handed. We also usually have things like bananas and apples in her reach, out of the fridge, and she can (and does) help herself. It’s much better than having to get up and handle it myself every time she’s hungry, and it makes grocery shopping easier — she has a sense of responsibility and duty in picking out her food, so she’s more willing to participate in a positive way. It’s also a good way to get her to try new foods. She’s super proud of her snack drawer, shows it to anyone who comes to our house, and even demanded my mom set her up with a portable snack drawer in the AirBnB when we were in Winnipeg having A.

Knowing how well that worked, I made a new self-serve station for her this past weekend — a craft drawer. She’s been really into making art lately, and I wanted to create something that would offer her autonomy with her activities (that isn’t a tablet or Netflix).

We have a big dresser/chest in the living room that holds a variety of things, so I cleared out one of the smaller drawers and filled it with art supplies that aren’t too messy. When we bought this house, I vowed I’d never let my kids have free access to art supplies that could lead to disaster, because I had to scrub crayon off of nearly every surface, and there’s still glitter glue on our wood stove that came with the house. With that in mind, I chose paper, colouring books, stickers, glue and a few decorative things like pom-poms to go with it, stencils, and washable crayons. M knows that stickers and glue don’t leave the table, and I reiterated to her that she’s responsible for not making a mess she can’t clean up — if she does, the art drawer experiment is over. So far so good, though!

Next on my list is creating a dry goods snack drawer with some other things M loves to eat, like crackers and pretzels. We have a lower cabinet that is accessible to her, so I just need to get the right bin and clear the space. We’ve also set up her clothes to be accessible, so for the most part she picks out her own outfits, and gets dressed in the morning with just a bit of help from us.

M will be heading to kindergarten this fall, and her teachers told us to do what we can to encourage independence between now and then. She loves having a big say in what she can eat, play with, and wear, and I love seeing her make her own choices. It’s win-win for everyone in the family.

What are the things your child can do, or likes to do, for him/herself? Any other ideas for self-serve stations appropriate for a preschooler?