Tell me about your public toddler meltdowns to cheer me up

[Rosadela]

I’ve got a 22 month old DD and she’s started getting to the age where she loses her shit over the smallest of things she’s always been great in cafes/restaurants/public spaces, however today I took her to a village down the road for something to eat at a nice little cafe. The plan was lunch there and then walk to the park 5 mins away and spend some time there. Sounded nice in principal.

Anyway we got to the cafe and I ordered her a baby chino (warm milk with foam on top and choc sprinkles) the waitress gave her a paper straw and DD started to drink it. I’d just ordered food too. Anyway the paper straw starts disintegrating (the milk is warm so it didn’t last long) DD starts fussing so I show her she can drink it from the cup itself. Nope she doesn’t want it, she wants the straw back NOW. I ask for another straw but DD specifically wants the mashed up soggy one which no longer works. She desperately tries to use it to drink and it obviously won’t work. I’m trying to show her alternative ways to drink but she’s not having it. I have her my phone to play with, colouring crayons, but we were past that.

She starts screeching so loud, the other 4 tables went quiet and started staring. I pick her up out her high chair and her shoe falls off in the process. She screams even louder and does that annoying “throw head back and bend back” thing that toddlers do. She’s flailing around screaming so loud it’s deafening. Everyone is looking and normally I’d just leave but they’d started cooking the food. I took her outside to calm her down without everyone watching, leaving all my stuff at the table. I could see everyone looking out of the window at DD throwing herself on the floor and crying. Anyway it took a total of 20 mins for her to calm down and we went back inside to eat. I was very on edge she would do it again and there were a few moments she started fussing but luckily I stopped them before they got worse.

Afterwards we walked to the park but DD wanted to splash in a puddle on the road, of course I didn’t let her but this angered her and it all started again. I had to walk back to the house carrying her whilst trying not to drop her as she was arching her back and throwing herself all around.

I feel pretty defeated now as a nice morning turned shitty. I’m anxious about going out to eat again as I can’t deal with the embarrassment again.

To help me feel better, please could u share a story of when your toddlers have had a total meltdown in public? Much appreciated, I need some lighthearted humour!

Every toddler does this. There is no need to be embarrassed and I’m sure the people who were looking were feeling empathy for you.

I took my DS (similar age) to Tesco the other week, he had a meltdown when I wouldn't buy him a pair of slippers (in the wrong size) so he grabbed the trolley and smashed it into a display of plastic pink accessories in the kids clothing dept 😆

Huge sympathy. I am in the depths of this. It was not helped by a mum "friend" saying via whatsapp oh my Dd doesn't have tantrums because I don't allow it.

Took Dd to garden centre just after lockdown, about 20 months. So she basically had not been out and walking ever. She was buggy pre lockdown.

She was doing ok then wanted to touch stuff. Screaming started to escalate so like you I picked her up to make a sharp exit. Sh grabbed a trailing plant from shelf and threw it. We had spent months throwing stones into river and she has quite a throw on her. I'm not exaggerating when I say it went everywhere.

A member of staff saw and was absolutely LOVELY. I offered to pay for it and she instead got a little spade and fussed Dd and got her to help repot it. She was just so kind. I was in tears.

We've all been there my love x

My 16 month old had a major meltdown this week as I wouldn't let her lick the cheese grater 🙄 it lasted about an hour, and there were real tears rolling down her cheeks.

I've recorded some of it to show her on her 18 😂

@icedaisy I totally get how it can bring you to tears. It’s hard as well as you can’t exactly tell them off, they won’t understand what you’re saying anyway. Not the same as disciplining a 3/4 year old is it?

You can only really say “no”, you can’t even reason or bargain with them like “if you’re good, you can have pizza for tea” etc

I suppose it’s just a case of riding out the storm

Oh yeah, 16 month old DS had a screaming shit fit in a posh furniture shop because I wouldn't let him climb on a $5k leather armchair. Full chucking himself on the ground and screaming. Then he grabbed the chair (floor sample THANK GOD, not for sale) and scratched it with his tiny nails.

I ended up agreeing to buy an arm chair that DH loved, but I hated, just so we could get out of there. I will now have a simmering resentment of said chair for the next 20 years

Awww poor you op we’ve all been there!

My dd is usually quite a chilled happy little girl but she went through this violent terror attack stage awhile ago. From 19 months to recently she’s nearly 2 now. She’d pull hair while kicking and biting and screaming haha 😂 she pulled huge chunks out of my hair because I didn’t have a pound for a shopping trolly. It was so awful and no one in store helped me..

I just had to go home, with no food and I cried to a friend who watched her so I could go back hahah.

That was the last time it happened promise you there’s hope. It’s a stage xx

Full sympathies!!

I took DS (2) to a park last week and he was so excited to go down his favourite slide. He climbed to the top and slid down like he's done 1000 times before. Upon reaching the bottom he had the biggest tantrum I've ever seen simply because he wasn't on the slide any more! Full on screaming, kicking, throwing himself backwards, the works! Took about ten minutes for him to pull himself round and we were stared at by every adult (and child) passing by for the whole duration. Once he was done, he jumped up and continued playing happily like I'd imagined the last ten minutes.

DD when she was 3 years in a grocery store. She wanted candy at the cashier and i told her not today. She grabbed it and held it up to the cashier. The lady told her "sorry sweetie, your mummy said no." DD started screeching like crazy. Drooped to the floor screaming "you are a stupid woman! Muuummmyyy this woman is stupid! So stupid!"
I quickly gathered all my things and apologised. Then dragged DD away who was still screaming at the poor "stupid" woman.
I was so embarrassed. DD is also quite small for her age and looks a lot younger than she is, so people are always really shocked when she swears. And her older brother just loves teaching her new words

My 4 year old had a tantrum as he wanted to sit on top of his kite and fly with it in the sky! He lay on the floor on the kite for about 20 min refusing to get off.

Out shopping on a busy high street and got stuck in the loop. 2 year old was overtired and wanted to walk in the shop. Thought I'd let her have 5 mins then in the pram for a nap. Time to go in the pram and had an epic meltdown. She was thrashing around so much I physically could not get her in the pram and strapped in. Must have been half an hour of messing around. In the end I had to take her coat off she was so hot, it wasn't a warm day and a helpful older lady came over to ask if I thought she was a bit cold. My friends came out to me in tears.

I love these stories, we have all this to come. DD is only 7 months but she had a full strop the other day because she wanted to chew on the newspaper and mean daddy wouldn’t let her. He had to fish a lump of paper out of her mouth and she had the print all over her. Mean parents

I once sat on the floor in the milk aisle with DS as he RAGED, kicking and screaming as I wouldn't let him pull all the blocks of butter off the fridge shelf. A good ten minutes until he calmed down enough to be picked up and wrestled back into the trolley seat.

After lots of people staring, a wonderful lady told me I was doing just fine and it reminded her of her DS doing the same thirty years before. Apparently he was also a vast toddler and too heavy to move mid-tantrum.

I have a 10 month old and he has temper tantrums at everything at the moment. God help me when he gets older!!

I once had to drag 2 year old DS1 out on the bus while he was on antibiotics for tonsillitis (not sure why, I think we needed nappies or calpol)
He had a screaming fit on the bus, headbutted the metal handrail and gave himself a nose bleed.

I still cringe thinking about it.

In purely practical terms, practice a fireman's lift. It means that you can usually hold both legs down and you don't get kicked in the face, they can't quite flail so much, they're not screaming directly into your ear and you've one hand left free.

I think our most epic one would have been in the middle of centre parcs. Pure overstimulation, tiredness, hunger, all the triggers. In the sports hall too, so quite the echo. I mean, it's centre parcs, it's not uncommon and I got many a look of solidarity, so not too traumatising, but for sheer stamina and ferocity of tantrums, it really stands out.

I never really notice when someone else’s toddler is having a tantrum, it’s like I’m deaf to it. But it always seems like my own DD is 10x louder, I think it’s always a case of you thinking your own child is the loudest and wildest when in actual fact people probably aren’t noticing as much as you think.

I feel loads better for having read all your stories! 👍

Dd loses her shit after nursery every time, because she’s overtired.

I once had to stop off at the pharmacy after nursery with Dd to pick up some medication that couldn’t wait. She moaned and whinged the whole way there so I was already getting stressed. I was standing at the counter, and Dd started climbing up the bloody shelving trying to reach the gummy vitamins. I grabbed her off while trying to give my name etc to the pharmacist.

Well Dd did not take kindly to that and started do that infuriating body made of jelly thing, so you can’t hold them, or when you do dump them on the floor, pick them up again. Shrieking at the top of lungs ‘leave me ALONE mummy!!!’ and crying.

I ended up having to slide her across the pharmacy floor with my foot to get her out and basically fireman’s lift her back to the car. I was so flustered and stressed I just burst into tears, and Dd had the cheek to ask what was wrong god they test you sometimes!

Both my ds have at some time or other had major public tantrums. The most dangerous one was actually private, in the car. Ds would be about 2 and we left somewhere before he wanted to go. While I was driving he managed to pull of his shoes and throw them at me from the back seat.

At about 2.5 my normally extremely placid dd had a full scale meltdown halfway around a large Swedish furniture shop. We were there to buy her a few things and it was all very exciting. Anyway, after a couple of minutes it became apparent she wasn't for reasoning with or calming so over my shoulder she went with dh red faced behind. It was a ten minute walk through the shop with her screaming and shouting. At one stage a very sweet lady in her 70's I'd guess said you keep going love, you're doing the right thing. Well it never happened again. Once or twice not long after if there was any sign of her not accepting a no in a shop I'd just say "do we want a repeat of the xxx incident" and that was enough. We went back there a few months later to get the stuff we had originally planned to buy and when we came to where the tantrum started the previous time she said "uh oh, this is where it happened". Dh and I had to try not to laugh at that stage. For weeks afterwards every time someone came to the house and she showed them her few new items she'd say "now I didn't get these the first time we went coz I had a tantrum but I was good when we went back".

Oh god yes!
My DD very rarely tantrums when out and about although has done a couple of times. Once we were in M&S and she went ballistic about something. Can't remember what but when I tried to put her in the pushchair she went ape shit. So I let her lie screaming on the floor until she calmed down. My mum was mortified and told me I should move her because everyone is watching. I disagree. I couldn't care less about other people but there is no way I'm getting kicked in the face by an out of control emotional toddler who just needs to chill for a few mins.

My son did something similar in morrisons when I couldn't let him take the milk off the shelf. He and my DD had one of those little trolleys and he decided he didn't want to push his anymore and lay in the middle of the aisle at the busiest possible time whilst going ape shit when I tried to push his trolley instead. So I left him to it and told the couple of old ladies that hed got out of bed the wrong side. One smiled and said she remembered it well! 😂.

I would take them outside if we were in a restaurant as I don't think it's nice for people to be disturbed. Bloody annoying more than anything if you're waiting for your food to arrive!

I’m sure the people who were looking were feeling empathy for you.

They never look like they're feeling empathy for you though do they.

My toddler had a series of repeated tantrums on a train once because what she wanted to watch/play on her tablet would not work due to unreliable internet signal. I kept trying to put on things that ddbt need internet but she screamed every time I did, kept hitting the apps that wouldn't work and screaming more when they timed out.in the middle of this a man with an Easter European accent decided to get up.off his seat, walk over to mine and loom over me, with a threatening/angry expression.
I glared back at him, he went and sat down but continued to glare at me and I cracked and said "What?!" to which he replied;

"Stop hitting it!"
(Apparently referring to my child).

So not only did I have to deal with tantrums but I was accused by random strangers of assaulting my child too.

(By the time I found a train employee to complain be said that because the train had now pulled into the station, he could no longer approach him so thanks for that NIR).

*NIR is Northern Ireland Railways btw.

Anyway op, you're describing every time i stepn out in public with a toddler.

I was in the natural history museum meeting tow other mum friends (that I did not know well), after a fairly easy visit, one of my twins asked for something from the shop, I said no, they both had the meltdown to end all meltdowns and I was shame from scalp to toenails....