I Finally Embraced Messy Play With My Toddler
The Practical Point
Sometimes the thing we’re avoiding with our kids is worse in our heads than it actually is.
Today, for me, that thing was: mess.
If you’re someone who cringes at the thought of toddler paint, sensory bins, Play-Doh ground into the floor, or anything else that creates one more freaking thing to clean up, try to pick one messy thing you’ve been avoiding and just do it.
It might not be as bad as you think.
The Story
I am a former elementary school teacher, so I’m used to the messes that school-age children make.
Toddlers, however, are an entirely different beast.
I clean the floor after meals. I wipe down the table after every snack, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I do what feels like an absolutely absurd amount of laundry. I clean counters. I wipe down the bathroom. I pick up toys just for them to reappear on the floor 30 seconds later.
At this stage of life, I genuinely cannot imagine voluntarily creating more things for myself to clean.
So…I haven’t. I haven’t really let my toddler be messy.
No painting. No Aquafaba. No sensory bins full of tiny things destined to end up scattered across my house. We play with regular toys, we play outside, we color. But anything that looks like it’s going to require an extensive cleanup afterward? No thank you.
Except my toddler had been asking me to paint for two days. And I avoided it like the plague.
Every time he asked, all I could picture was paint everywhere. I imagined the colors getting mixed together and ruined. Basically, in my head:
Paint = mess = absolutely not.
But he kept asking. So today, I embraced the mess. I decided he deserves to play with things, and I shouldn’t stop him just because I don’t want the mess.
And because apparently I needed some sort of exposure therapy for toddler messes, we didn’t ease into it.
We went hands first.
I painted one of his hands red and the other yellow and we mixed, mixed, mixed them together. Orange! Then we did blue and yellow. Green! Then red and blue. Purple! And he thought it was SO cool.
After that, I put little blobs of the different colored paints onto a paper plate so I didn’t have to watch all of the actual paint jars get mixed together. Because listen, I said I was embracing the mess. I did not say I had completely lost my mind.
I handed him some paintbrushes, although he mostly just used his hands. He painted, and painted, and painted.
We went to the sink approximately 72 times to wash his hands. Apparently, as a kid who hasn’t been allowed to get particularly messy, he’s not very fond of being messy either. Whoops.
I guess we’re going to learn together.
And yes, the paint got everywhere. There was paint on the table. Paint on the counter. Paint on the floor. Paint on the sink. Paint on his clothes. Paint on the cabinet.
At one point I looked around my kitchen and thought, Yep. This is exactly what I was trying to avoid, it is everywhere.
But then my baby woke up and we were done.
I wiped down the table and the counter. I cleaned the spots off the floor and cabinet. His clothes went right into the laundry. And that was pretty much it.
The enormous disaster I had built up in my head took a few minutes to clean. Meanwhile, we had so much fun.
We mixed colors. We got messy. We laughed. He got to do the thing he’d been asking me to do for two days.
And I realized that maybe I’ve been so focused on avoiding one more mess for myself that I’ve also been avoiding some really fun experiences with him.
I’m not suddenly going to start filling giant sensory bins with rice and glitter and leaving them unattended in my living room. Let’s not get carried away.
But maybe a little mess isn’t quite as big of a deal as I’ve made it out to be.
One Last Practical Thought
There is already SO much to clean when you have little kids. I don’t think anyone needs to intentionally make their life harder just because Pinterest says their toddler needs a beautifully curated sensory activity every afternoon.
But I also don’t want my fear of having one more thing to clean keep us from doing things my kids would genuinely enjoy.
So maybe the goal isn’t to embrace the mess every day.
Maybe it’s just to occasionally say yes to the mess when the fun is worth it.
Today, it definitely was.
Every family, and every season of parenting, is different. I’m not here to convince you to do things exactly the way we do them. I’m simply sharing practical ideas that have made our lives easier. Take what works, tweak what doesn’t, and leave the rest behind. If one small idea makes your day easier, this post has done its job.
Practical Parent Picks
If you’re also going to attempt exposure therapy for your fear of toddler messes, kid-friendly, non-toxic, washable paint is non-negotiable. Ours came off the table, counters, sink, floor, cabinet, hands, and clothes without much trouble—which is probably the only reason I can confidently say I’d do this again.
This paper is nice and big and actually holds up pretty well against my toddler and his painting skills!
I gave him paintbrushes. He mostly ignored them and used his hands. But technically, they were there. The chunky handle is easy for little ones to hold and the bristles are very sturdy.
