Mum guilt for shouting at difficult toddler

[Moonshine160]

DS is 28 months old and was a very easy, chilled out baby and I absolutely loved it, felt like the luckiest mum in the world. Fast forward to the toddler stage and he is very boisterous and hyperactive, doesn’t stop for two seconds, and has taken to biting, scratching, pinching, pulling my hair and throwing things at me. He started at first to do this behaviour when he was really excited about something but now he does it whenever he’s angry or frustrated, or if I don’t allow him to do something. I have scratches all over my neck, arms and stomach from him attacking me (I know how pathetic that sounds). I’m at breaking point and I’ve started shouting at him when he does this, and then he gets upset and needs a cuddle. I have never wanted to be a shouty mum and I can deal with the tantrums but I can’t deal with the pain that he keeps inflicting on me, he actually draws blood sometimes. Me and DH have now had an argument because he said I shouldn’t shout at him because he’s too young and I’ll scare him, but I don’t feel like I do it out of choice, I just snap because I can’t take it anymore. I think a lot of this is down to his frustration of not being able to communicate how he feels yet, he has a speech delay. I feel riddled with mum guilt for shouting and feel pathetic and incompetent for struggling so much to cope with this behaviour. Any advice please?

This is such a hard situation for you and your toddler. Give yourself some grace- we all shout on occasion. But if it's becoming a habit it's essential to have an action plan to break it.
I find I get more frustrated if I am dehydrated and hungry. So the first thing I do is silently put my toddler out of danger or simply pick them up and have a glass of water and a banana. Then I'm back in control. Sounds stupid but it works for me it just resets me.
Take care of yourself.

This was me yesterday, I was very stern with DS 27 months after being crawled all over and persistent running off.

We need coping strategies too, mine is to give myself time out before I get to this stage and think to myself ‘what difference will 5 mins make?’. We are not perfect and we all have these moments. When they are only moments we need to give ourselves grace and move on. It isn’t any good for them if we are ‘perfect’ mums. Read Winnicotts theory of the good enough mum, it really helped me out these moments into perspective.

And DS was fine, we talked about it and then chatted about our day. My DH never gets to this point because he has very limited sole parenting time. You know shouting is not what you want, your partner doesn’t need to tell you off but help you instead.