45+ Insightful & Funny Quotes About Toddlers
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Looking for great quotes about toddlers? Check out this list of 45+ toddler quotes for parents.
Being deep in the toddler phase, I curated this list of quotes that rings true to our toddler experience. I wanted a mix of funny, relatable and meaningful toddler quotes, plus insightful quotes about parenting the littlest kids.
There are also quotes broken down by age about 1-year olds, 2-year olds, and 3-year olds.
If you enjoy these quotes, don’t forget to check out:
And for some great tips on for toddler parents, you’ve got to read these 20 genius parenting hacks for toddlers from Reddit.
On to the toddler quotes!
Funny quotes about toddlers
Let’s get the ball rolling with funny quotes about toddlers full of humor and heart. If you’ve ever hung out with the a toddler, these nuggets are all too relatable.
“Being in a car with 3 toddlers is the best form of birth control” -Keeping Up With the Kardashians
“There should be an energy drink called 6AM Toddler.” —Simon Holland
“Living with kids is like living in a frat house… everything’s broken, nobody sleeps, and there’s a lot of throwing up.” —Everybody Loves Raymond
I actually tell my toddler this next quote regularly when he’s stalling before bed.
“No one’s to do list is as long as a toddler’s at bedtime.” —Unknown
“Being a father is the single greatest feeling on Earth. Not including those wonderful years I spent without a child, of course.” —Ryan Reynolds
“You can say “please” and “thank you” a million times and your toddler will never repeat it, but if you say “a**-faced mother f*****” ONCE…” —Henpecked Hal
“The fastest land mammal is a toddler who’s been asked what’s in their mouth.” —Ramblin Mama
This next Milton Berle quote is too spot on.
“If evolution really works, how come mothers only have two hands?” —Milton Berle
“You can learn many things from children. How much patience you have, for instance.” —Franklin Adams
“Toddler: A small creature who is only hungry after you throw away the food she refused to eat the first 80 times you offered it to her.” —Internet Meme
Meaningful Quotes About Toddlers
Switching gears, here are some meaningful and insightful quotes about toddlers. When you’re in the thick of sticky hands and someone always following you to the bathroom, it can sometimes be hard to recognize what a special time toddlerhood is.
I hope these quotes help you pause like they did for me. The first quote gets said ad nauseam but it is one I truly think about a lot as my babies become toddlers.
“The days are long but the years are short.” —Unknown
“Toddlers are active explorers. They eagerly try new things and use materials in different ways. Toddlers want to be independent and they have a strong sense of ownership.” -Janet Gonzalez-Mena
“I love toddlers, but they are a tough audience.” —Robin Williams
“The toddler must say no in order to find out who she is. The adolescent says no to assert who she is not.” —Louise Kaplan
“The fundamental job of a toddler is to rule the universe.
” —Lawerence Kutner
“A babe in the house is a wellspring of pleasure, a messenger of peace and love, a resting place for innocence on earth, a link between angels and men.” —Martin Tupper
“Having a kid makes you slow down. When you’re walking with a toddler to pick up a leaf can take a half hour. You’ve never spent that time looking at a leaf before, having that kind of interaction, so I think it does make you change the way you look things.” —Sofia Coppola
“Children have neither past nor future. They enjoy the present, which very few of us do.” —Jean De La Bruyere
“I think, at a child’s birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift would be curiosity.” —Eleanor Roosevelt
“Little boys should never be sent to bed. They always wake up a day older.” —Peter Pan, by J.M. Barrie
Quotes About Parenting Toddlers
Next we have quotes about being in the weeds of actually parenting toddlers. Of course, this Chrissy Teigen quote up first completely nails it:
“My biggest parenting conundrum: why is it so hard to put someone who is already sleepy to sleep.” —Chrissy Teigen
“I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it.” —Harry Truman
“Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing up is like shoveling the sidewalk before it stops snowing.” —Phyllis Diller
While this next quote is technically about babies, it holds true in toddlerhood too. “The baby is the enemy” has been one of our parenting mantras since my first pregnancy and it has always helped us keep perspective.
“Your spouse is not the enemy. The baby is the enemy.” —Cup of Jo
“Toddlers are germ-warfare machines in a cute package.
” —Debora Geary
“If I had my child to raise all over again, I’d build self-esteem first, and the house later. I’d finger-paint more, and POINT the finger less. I would do less correcting and more connecting. I’d take my eyes off my watch, and watch with my eyes. I’d take more hikes and fly more kites. I’d stop playing serious, and seriously play. I would run through more fields and gaze at more stars. I’d do more hugging and less tugging.” —Diane Loomans
“A toddler can do more in an unsupervised minute than most people can do all day.” —Unknown
Quotes about 1-year olds
When I was looking for quotes, it was hard to find age-related quotes not about birthdays so I wanted to include these more universal quotes about specific toddler ages.
First, we have a list of quotes about 1-year olds.
“When kids hit one year old, it’s like hanging out with a miniature drunk. You have to hold onto them. They bump into things. They laugh and cry. They urinate. They vomit.” —Johnny Depp
“When I think of happiness or joy in this life, I begin with some experiences that are simple and basic. I see the expression on the face of a one-year-old taking those first steps. I think of a child loving a puppy or a kitten. If the more mature have not dulled their physical or spiritual sensitivities by excess or disuse, they can also experience joy in what is simple and basic.” —Dallin H. Oaks
“A mother of a one-year-old boy is a movie star in a world without critics.” —Allison Pearson.
“Trust should be like the feeling of a one year old baby when you throw him in the air, he laughs because he knows you will catch him.” —Abhishek Thakore
“The baby was almost certainly one year old. They knew this because of the red rosette pinned to her front, which read, 1! “Or rather,” said Charles Maxim, “the child is either one year old or she has come first in a competition. I believe babies are rarely keen participants in competitive sport. Shall we therefore assume it is the former?” —Rooftoppers, by Katherine Rundell
Quotes about 2-year old toddlers
And now some quotes about 2-year olds, perhaps the most the quintessential toddlers.
“A two-year old is kind of like having a blender, but you don’t have a top for it.” —Jerry Seinfeld
“No symphony orchestra ever played music like a two-year-old girl laughing with a puppy.” —Bernard Williams
“Having a two-year-old is very hard. I feel like I’m in a relationship with an emotionally unstable woman who is also physically abusive and never gets in trouble for it.” —Ali Wong
“If you’ve ever hauled a 28-pound two-year-old around New York, you’ll find that men fold at the knees a lot quicker than women.” —Anthony Bourdain
“Sometimes you need to talk to a two year old just so you can understand life again.” —Unknown
“I wasn’t really that informed about the two-year-old. Oh, I’d read about them, and occasionally I’d see documentaries on the Discovery Channel showing two-year-olds in the wild, where they belong.
” —Ray Romano
Quotes about 3-year olds
Finally, here are quotes about 3-year old toddlers to round out the list.
“I have a five year-old son and a three year-old daughter. I want my son to have a choice to contribute fully in the workforce or at home. And I want my daughter to have the choice to not just succeed, but to be liked for her accomplishments.” —Sheryl Sandberg
“A three-year-old child is a being who gets almost as much fun out of a fifty-six-dollar set of swings as it does out of finding a small green worm.” —Bill Vaughan
“Talking to a drunk person was like talking to an extremely happy, severely brain-damaged three-year-old.” —John Green
I really love this next quote from Pete Seeger, the folk singer activist.
“A lullaby is a propaganda song and any three-year-old knows it.” —Pete Seeger
“I have a three-year-old daughter, which makes me more environmentally conscious. For me, it’s about the future.” —Rufus Wainwright
“Dying laughing because your three-year-old made a fart joke, it doesn’t matter what else is going on, that’s real happiness.” —Gwyneth Paltrow
“I can take a three-year-old and make a hit record with him.” —Dr. Dre
And if you have a toddler at home, don’t forget to check out these lists of great toddler books:
