Omg please help!

I don’t get why it’s so hard to take him down with you?

He’s just learning that if you leave. You leave and that’s causing him distressed. It makes no difference to take him down with you and then back up.

It’s derogatory and it’s obvious. And I’m responding to anyone else who is derogatory. No I’m not going to respond ‘in kindness’ when they haven’t bothered in the first instance.

@Toddlerhelpplease123

Have you tried taking him downstairs straightway on waking and then not giving him his milk/porridge/toast immediately?

To try to discover if the tantrum is because he is hungry or because he's bored with bring upstairs for the previous 12 hours

Yes that’s exactly what we do. One things I say with confidence is that a routine doesn’t stay the same for long with toddlers! We think we’ve nailed it and then boom
they changed their needs/demands.

I actually get up first, prepare breakfast then back upstairs to shower before children get up. They want their bowl of fruit instantly so troop downstairs in PJs and eat that. But this isn’t the same routine we had 6 months ago, we reassess fairly frequently what we need to do to keep the ship running and stay somewhat sane.

Saying you find a situation "bizarre" is not treating someone badly.

You're the one who's chosen to respond to multiple posters and criticise them for their comments - that doesn't seem very kind to me...

Nope. I just take issue with people treating people badly. That’s just me I guess.

It’s beneficial for children to sleep in a cot up to age three, barring a safety issue.

‘Crushing your child’s independence’ is unnecessarily dramatic.

No, I just think you're bored and trying to pick a fight.

You are speaking to her really derogatory and you know you are.

@Toddlerhelpplease123 - why not take the milk upstairs in a flask, at bedtime, so it is there when you get up?

Go straight downstairs with him and get him his drink. Let him drink it downstairs while you get your drinks ready

I don’t agree this is bad behaviour. It sounds like he is communicating. Maybe he has communicated this before but it hasn’t been recognised. I don’t mean that unkindly, sometimes toddlers communicate in bizarre ways. But OP has said that she knows what he wants yet hasn’t taken any steps to address the issue yet - she has said in this thread that she will, so maybe if he eats fairly quickly then the problem will be solved.

Small children don’t handle being hungry well though, it turns into hanger quite quickly. Hopefully with a few adjustments to their routine the issue will be solved and her son will, I imagine, change his routine again soon enough as their fickle minds do.

Yes I do this

I don't see what your large house has to do with the situation really 🤔

Child wakes, have a wee, walk them downstairs to get drink/breakfast.

Who said anything about being a perfect parent?

This isn't a one-off, OP says this has gone on every day for a week - I just find it strange that in that time, neither of them have thought about trying something different, that's all.

That sounds like this boy is an 18month old toddler not a child twice that age

I don’t think it is bad behaviour. I think he is communicating that he has moved on from hanging about in bed waiting and chatting. He wants the milk so take him downstairs.

Why do you need to be dressed and teeth brushed before you enter the kitchen

There is a difference between a "classic MN thread" (ie exactly what you'd expect with vipers, misreading and wilful ignoring of stuff mixed in with solid helpful advice) and a MN Classic (a memorable thread)

Jeez, it's not "nasty" to think it's odd that they haven't thought to try anything different in the last week

It could be excitement and anticipation of getting the drink, he doesn't know what to do with the feeling so he screams to release it all. As previous posters have suggested, breaking the cycle is most likely the best solution, straight down the stairs with the drinks maker, to start, and go from there.

Toddlers are well known for being fickle and changeable, so just because he didn't do this 2 weeks ago means nothing!

It’s ’concerning’ he doesn’t ’know anything else’?

Christ, stop being dramatic.

It really isn’t a mumsnet classic.

She hasn’t left him, he or his dad is with him while the other fetches the milk. She also says he is saying he just wants his milk, not that he wants to go anywhere.

Do you want some sort of certificate for ‘bright ideas’? What’s the point of being nasty?

It's great that you're such a perfect parent but often you don't see the "obvious" things whilst you are deep in the throws of dealing with the joys of toddler wrangling.

DS walked at 9 months and was climbing the curtains and jumping off the windowsills by 10 months. By 2 he was getting up at 5.30am and asking to go downstairs and could we put in a video for him so we got rid of the stair gate and taught him how to operate the tv and video and told him to let us know he was going down stairs. So 5.30am every morning he would come into our bedroom, tell me he was going down stairs and off he would go.

I would leave milk in a sippy cup on the bottom shelf of the fridge each evening and he would entertain himself for an hour before the rest of us got up.

I think he enjoyed going downstairs and doing his own thing.

Ds has ADHD and although I knew what he was saying no one else could not even his df.

The concerning thing here is that he doesn’t know anything else.

I work with children this age, and I would raise this as a concern.