My daughter’s latest favorite activity when she’s hanging out in the bathroom watching me get dressed: Unraveling the toilet paper roll and then ripping up the paper. While I’m happy she’s occupied enough for me to brush my teeth, I also don’t like that she’s wasting some of the somewhat expensive paper.
So that’s why I recently turned to Heloise’s book to see what tips she has for dealing with this problem. Sure enough, Heloise has a hint on the subject: squeeze the roll until the inner cardboard roll is bent. This, she says, “prevents a child from unrolling the whole roll at once.” Maybe this tip will work for you, but it didn’t for me. I tried it and then my daughter immediately unraveled much of the roll.
Turns out, my mom friends have some better ideas. I’ve combined those below with some of the best tips I found in my research for this post – and let me know in the comments section below if you have a better trick for saving the paper squares (I didn’t include reusable squares on my list because I just don’t think they are that practical for most people, but let me know if you disagree).
1. Clip the toilet paper roll to the cardboard with a large office clip. I tried this and don’t think my clip was big enough to do the job so if you’re going to try this trick, use a really big clip
2. Put the roll in so you have to pull the paper upward to unravel it, making the unraveling task a little more difficult for a little toddler
3. Make your own toilet paper cover like a creative one from Catherine at My Frugal Baby Tips or this pretty one from Jillyn at the blog Jumping Jelly Bean
4. Buy a toilet paper guard (here’s an option from Safety 1st and another style is offered by Mom-Invented TP Saver)
5. Put the toilet paper where your child can’t reach it (though of course this easy approach likely isn’t that convenient for you or your toilet trainee)
6. Just repeatedly tell your child “no” (or “Are you a cat? Quit it!” as one mom suggests) when he or she starts the unraveling until the message is received
Love the tips! And thanks for including the My Frugal Baby Tips hint -that’s my favourite!