Regale me with tales of your 'delightful' three year olds...

[motheroftinydragons]

Please wise mumsnetters who've been there, done it and come out the other side relatively sane!

My gorgeous, funny, beautifully behaved delight of a baby turned three recently. Oh my word how she's changed! She is like a miniature teenager, but with more of the attitude.

I'm doing all these sensible 'right' things, I think. Firm boundaries with poor behaviour, consequences, consistency, lots of love, positive praise etc. But wow she is bloody hard work!

I've just heard age three described as 'the arsehole age' and it made me laugh. So come on, please cheer me up and let me know when I can expect my nice child back again (and prepare me because I've got a second daughter who will no doubt go through the same in a couple of year time!)

I've had three three year olds. They are mostly delightful but often they are tyrannical little turds! I lovingly harvested silverbeet from our vege garden the other day. Served it with dinner. Three year old DS picked it up with his hands, ate some, spat that, took the rest off his plate and THREW IT down on to the table and screamed "I DON'T LIKE IT". (He got put outside with the other animals for that).

It's funny in hindsight but at the time the whole family was .

He also gets very irate when my husband and I talk to each other. "YOU'RE NOT LISTENING TO ME!" he yells. Little tyrant.

Choices no longer work so ‘Will Mummy take you for a bath or will Daddy?’ used to get a choice and happiness it now gets ‘none of you’ followed by ‘you’re hurting me!’ should one of us carry him upstairs for said bath.

Sigh.
My eldest was the sweetest most placid baby.
Then he turned three and all hell broke loose. That's how it felt. Awkward over every bloody thing and almost completely stopped eating at one point as everything was "yucky".
He improved when he started school. However I look back at that year and a half with fear and trembling as ds1 was so awfully behaved and ds2 arrived and didn't know what sleep was for. It nearly broke me.
Ds2 was also awful at three, but he was an awful baby and toddler so by that point it didn't feel so bad.
I love him them both very much and it's a good job I do.

"Ds2 was also awful at three,but he was an awful baby and toddler so by that point it didn't feel so bad"

I have a threenager, it's the attitude that gets me. How can so much attitude come from such a small person? She's not naughty as such but she's cheeky.
Me - "dd stop that now please"
Dd - "no I'm not stop that now, you stop that now". She does stop what she's doing but she has to have attitude about it, it's exasperating!

Thanks, you're making me feel better!

Mines not really horribly naughty as such. Just like a pp says, attitude and cheek is unbelievable!

"DD stop doing that now please"
"Mummy, don't speak to me like that!" With a fucking finger wag!

"DD put your shoes on please, we're going to be late"
"No. I will wear my slippers and I WANT TO BE LATE!"

It's started since she began at preschool or got increasing worse anyway. She's an angel there though apparently!

I get the shoving away of plates with loud 'YUCK!'s for food she's previously declared great love for. Really DD?! She's also taken to, nearly every dinner time, tipping milk onto her food like it's a great game. FFS. Fine, eat gross milky food then

Tyrants, the lot of them! Where's that boundary? Ooh do let me shove it so hard it almost breaks!

@kiwiinkits.. DD (3 in a couple of weeks) also doesn't like it if DH and I dare have a conversation that doesn't involve her. And she manages to follow it up with am excuse, eg "Stop talking! My babies are sleeping!" Or if we're in the car, "Stop talking! It's a busy road!"

Haha my youngest is three and my god the tantrums, even asking her to get dressed you'd think I'd asked to murder her.

I'm in the no stage now anything I ask is no and when she eventually agrees to something she has to do it so takes twice as long. Roll on 4 lol.

It gets worse? DC is 2.5 and he will frequently ask me 'mummy, I push dc2?' I say no and he does it anyway.

My currently 3 year old is genuinely delightful (as described by her CM). She is incredibly patient with her older sister who is not so delightful. DD6 has always been willfull and I had terrible 2s, threenager, WTF4s, godawful5s, shocking6s!! I love them both with every inch of my being but my goodness my eldest loves a good boundary push. 'I HATE IT!' 'You haven't tried it' 'BUT IT'S GREEN/BROWN!' (insert apparently deadly colour) 'You only need to try a little bit ' '(rant rant rant rant rant tries it) Mmm that's yummy can I have more?' FML.

Three was fab ... it was the calm between the terrible twos and the f*ing fours ... at least for two of mine.

See @hanahsaunt we never had the terrible twos! Not at all. There was me feeling all smug...

Not anymore

Maybe you always get one or the other (or both if you're really unlucky!)