To want to scream at DD?

[CrohnicallyAnxious]

I mean, I love her to bits, but god sometimes she's annoying!

She's 2 years old and her favourite thing to do at the moment is whinge. This morning, from the moment I tried to get her dressed to the time we had to leave (30 mins ish) it was 'I want dress on!' over and over and over again, said in the whiniest voice possible, and with the occasional sob or foot stamp thrown in for good measure.

Then when I tried to get her shoes on it was 'I want sandals on!'.

Finally followed by 'I want dolly!' when we were on our way.

I explained why she couldn't have whatever it was she was crying for. I asked her to be quiet. Every time I tried to distract her she'd engage for a moment then go back to 'I want...'. I tried ignoring her, calmly leaving the room and doing something elsewhere and she followed me and got louder! Once we were in the car there was no escape and I was just about at breaking point when we got to nursery.

When do they start to become more rational? And is there any way to keep her quiet without giving in to her demands? I do pick my battles, but I really don't think it was a good idea to send her to nursery in the party dress and sandals that she wanted to wear!

[ApocalypseThen]

Well all I can say is my mother only responded to us if we spoke in a normal tone of voice. We were free to use silly voices for nonsense if we didn't want something, but she had a hearing problem - she just couldn't hear whining.

[Nabootique]

I feel your pain. Mine is exactly like this at the moment, although she is 4 (she was fine at 2, so we thought we'd got away with it!). No helpful advice really, but if it makes you feel better I frequently think how irritating my child is! :D

[Thebodynowchillingsothere]

Yes that's exactly how I dealt with that Apocolyose

I want gets nothing and silly voices can't be heard by mummy.

It gets better op. It's best to be consistent and sensible now and you will reap the benefits when she's older as you have set good boundaries.

[Thebodynowchillingsothere]

Can I make one suggestion. With my own kids and mindees I had a special teddy. This teddy could talk and say things in a funny voice like whose that whining? and your giving me a hesdacheit often broke the cycle of moan to make them laugh.

Keep the action moving too so instead of trying to reason with her over the dress just say briskly 'no you can't it's this one today'And then pop it in her. No messing no debating.

Then do something else like feeding the birds or her her to hunt for something for you.

If mind really whined I would turn up the radio and ignore until they stopped.

[CrohnicallyAnxious]

Thanks everyone, at least I'm not the only one with an annoying small child! thebody I like the idea of making teddy talk, it might just be what she needs.

But dealing with it matter of factly doesn't seem to be working. It went roughly like this this morning:
Me: what are you going to wear today, these trousers or these ones?
DD: want dress on
Me: no, it's too cold. Shall mummy choose which trousers you wear?
DD: want dress on!
Me: let's put these ones on then (quickly dresses DD). Right, can you help mummy with the washing?
DD: I! Want! Dress! On!
Me: (starts hanging washing) can you pass me those socks please?
DD: here you are
Me: thank you. Wow, you are helpful, passing all these clothes to mummy.
DD: want dress on
Me: Time to brush our teeth!
DD: (brushes teeth)
Me: now we need to do your hair
DD: want dress on

By the time we were in the car I had to turn the radio up and sing along loudly, it still took 5-10 minutes before she fell quiet.

Part of the problem is she has a really good memory for her age, if you say to her we'll do x tomorrow, her first words will be 'x' when she gets up. So even when I distract her she doesn't forget what she's whining about.

[pictish]

Sounds about right to me. Kids are annoying eh?

[Hakluyt]

Dress with tights and a cardigan?

[Tzibeleh]

You say you pick your battles, maybe this was one you shouldn't bother picking?

I was very firm with my dc when they were tiny, would not have let them go to nursery in 'inappropriate' clothes, etc. now they're older, I notice many toddlers in 'inappropriate' clothes, and I wonder why on earth I bothered. It certainly didn't gain us anything - other than stress. So, unless its a precious dress, why not just let her wear it? With tights and a cardy, of course, and a pair of shoes in her bag for when her feet get cold in sandals.

[CrohnicallyAnxious]

hakluyt I do let her wear an old dress with tights/leggings sometimes. But she isn't allowed to wear anything to nursery that I would be upset if it got ruined, as she does often ruin clothes there, so no chance of her wearing her party dress. And it was so cold this morning, I know she will be outside at nursery throwing herself round in the mud, splashing in puddles, and going on the slide, she would freeze in tights.

[McSqueezy]

My DS2 (4) is the most whiny child I have ever encountered in a lifetime. He has an extremely high pitched 'normal' voice, so God help you if he starts complaining. He is chronically grumpy in the adult sense, and has something to say about everything.

It's actually a family joke that he was reincarnated, and was an old woman in his former life. It doesn't help that he reckons he is my superior these days. I have plenty of days where I get tired of listening to him whinge like a parrot on my shoulder, and feel like putting him on the doorstep outside.

[GoogleyEyes]

Sometimes humour can help:
"I want dress!"
"Well, I want an elephant!"
Puzzled pause...
If you can carry on thinking if even sillier things, it works even better.

[Minshu]

My DH had a good method to answer these when DD was smaller, which I tried to follow. Had reasonable success, but not every time. Avoid the downright "no", by saying "Yes, you can wear that dress tomorrow / when we visit Grandma. Today you will wear these trousers." Reduce her choice at that point, then distract with something random or silly.

"Yes,you can have that chocolate after dinner". "Yes, it will be nice to see dolly when we get home".

It's a bit like dealing with irate customers...

[LustyBusty]

My mum used to respond to "I want"s with "and I want peace and quiet so it looks like we've both lucked out"
Didn't work very often, but I'm sure mum got lots of wry. smiles going round the supermarket.

[notagainffffffffs]

I had the exact same today.except no nursery so fucking constant mithering. Im hiding in the bath with a cold diet coke and an e cig :D
No advice here, just sympathy!

[Summerisle1]

Offering choice sounds such a fair and reasonable idea. Unless you are trying to reason with a 2 year old going through this stage. I realised, quite quickly, that the more variety you presented them with, the more opportunities there were to say "No!".

So at the moment, forget about democracy. Just dress your dd in what's appropriate for her activities and try and avoid too much debate about it.

[CrohnicallyAnxious]

notagain you poor thing, at least I got some respite at work!

minshu I do that sometimes, but I have to be sure that i can stick with what I say as DD will remember and ask for the dress tomorrow.

I'll have to remember some of the sillier suggestions, even if it goes over DD's head it will have given me an outlet.

[MotherOfInsomniacToddlers]

I have two toddlers, they are 2 and 3 and esp the 3 yo is exactly like this. The only silver lining I can offer to you is that she's at nursery!! Mine drives me crazy 24/7 :-P

[RinkyTinkTen]

Thank god it's not just me! She's 2 as well and literally this weekend she's discovered she can wear other clothes thanks to DH!

She spent the whole weekend in a dress & a T-shirt and I spent 10 minutes battling with her to put tights on & another 10 trying to get a cardi on. Nightmare!

[mummymeister]

So why battle with kids over clothes? if they want to wear a dress and sandals let them. put sensible clothes in a carrier bag and take them with you. when they complain of being cold, open the bag and get them to choose what they want out of it. a child of 2 isnt going to die of the cold. it helps them to realise the importance of making good choices. Just not worth having a battle with them over something so trivial. my DD's spent days in various costumes with odd hairstyles etc. it was an expression of their nature. the more you challenge them the more they will challenge back. one of my DD's hates being too warm. even in this weather its a short sleeve t shirt to school. just the way she is. I never sweated it to be honest.

[Bonbonbonbon]

My dd is 21 months and in a whiny phase. Her whining isn't really coherent words though; I can tell what she wants but she is really just flapping and yelling. My tactic is similar to the old "hearing problem" method except I say, "I can't understand you when you whine. Use your words or your signs." It works about 70% of the time.

[Boomtownsurprise]

Why can't she wear tights? Or leggings underneath the dress?

Why can't she choose clothes?

Tbh it sounds like you're always telling her what to do. Try offering s choice. It works much better with my two dds at 4 and 2.

She is allowed an opinion. Encourage her and she will be dressing herself very soon.

[CrohnicallyAnxious]

mummymeister and boomtown
DD goes to nursery, where amongst other things she climbs and slides and plays (or falls) in the mud. The vast majority of the clothes that she wears to nursery ends up ruined (stained or ripped). I don't mind as I'd rather she have the chance to be 'free' than forever told 'don't do that, you'll ruin your clothes'. Hence she has a limited choice of clothes she can wear to nursery (either old, on the verge of being outgrown, or bought cheaply in the sales).

If the weather is dry and not too cold, she does have a couple of second hand dresses that I don't mind her wearing to nursery with tights or leggings underneath. Neither of which are the one she wanted to wear today. Besides which, today it was freezing cold and frosty, which meant that as the frost thawed, it would be wet. If you get tights or leggings wet they stick to your legs and make you very cold and sore. So I bought her some thicker jogging bottom type trousers that would be warmer and not stick family to her legs. DD came with me and helped choose them.

I do give DD limited choices- her choice today was between two different trousers that were weather and activity appropriate.

I didn't want to take the easy option of letting her choose what she wanted to wear and packing the appropriate clothes to take to nursery for a couple of reasons-
1, nursery are busy enough getting toddlers dressed in coats, gloves etc to go outside without having to change a child's entire outfit before going out. I work in a school and would be very if a parent handed me a bag of clothes and said 'Dd wanted to wear her party dress today, so you can get her properly dressed before play time, oh and don't let her get paint on it in the meantime'
2, I didn't want to reward the whinging by letting her wear the dress after all, that might stop the whinging for today but she would get worse over time, having learned that it works.

[RaRaSkirtsForever]

Is it a delaying technique so you are slower getting out the door perhaps?

[scratchandsniff]

Oh I feel your pain! DS has turned into a whiney whingey terrible two in the last week. At first I put it down to him being under the weather, but no I think its here to stay for a while. He's become so defiant. He wants something, then he doesn't want it, then he does, and so on. Or I've done something incorrectly for example breaking a satsuma into segments rather than leaving it whole. Aaaarrrggghh its driving me nuts! He screams NO at the top of his voice and 'my turn now'.

I'm expecting DC2 soon, worried about how I'll cope.

[CrohnicallyAnxious]

rara it might be- but she was just as bad when we got in from nursery. I think she was just in a contrary mood, if we were staying home she'd have got her shoes and demanded to 'go nursery'.

scratch don't get me started on food! Luckily she eats her meals very well. But she's started getting demanding about snacks, again she won't accept the choice I offer her but will demand something that I don't have in the house (like biscuits). I've taken to offering her a couple of things that I know she likes, she refuses so I just leave them on the table and walk away. She'll pick one eventually. Though I still remember the day I peeled her banana and broke it in half (like I always do, I have served her probably 100 bananas in this way) and she looked at me and cried because 'nana broke'.

Which reminds me- I must go and re read the cutted up pear thread to remind myself I'm not the only one with a 2 year old like this!