I don’t think I like toddlers. Are they all this awful?!

[JustAskingMate]

Exasperated by this past few weekends. I have a baby girl who is 1. Since having her I’ve made a lot of ‘mum friends’ from various groups who have babies and toddlers of varying ages.

Each one who has a toddler I’ve come away shocked and horrified as whats to come!

Im talking about hair pulling, smacking, biting, screaming, running away and just general feral behaviour.

I completely get the running around and screaming but the aggression of these kids is next level. Because my baby is so much younger she is more vulnerable to harm. Whenever of my friends kids comes near her I pull her away immediately as i genuinely think they’d cause serious harm. The two times I let them get near they pulled her hair and throwed a hard plastic toy at her. For no reason whatsoever.

Those who have small babies plus a nightmare toddler I wonder how they do anything. If left unsupervised for a moment their baby could suffer a serious injury from their sibling.

I love my baby unconditionally so know the other parents do of course, but how they manage to not scream with rage/frustration astounds me and I give them so much credit.

Some of these toddlers I actively dislike due to their behaviour. Don’t find them cute at all and have cancelled any future meet ups with them now as I cannot be around it. I want to give them a proper telling off when they are hitting/biting/attacking instead of letting their parents who they don’t even listen to, but of course I can’t.

I’ve only met two toddlers out of around 12 toddlers who weren’t feral. They ran around and didn’t always listen, but they weren’t aggressive at all.

The parents responses to the behaviours differ. Some just sigh and give a loose telling off whilst others actively tell them off. But nothing seems to make a difference. So I’m guessing it’s just developmental.

The kids don’t seem to care about being reprimanded at all. No fear or upset about being told off from mum/dad. They continue.

Is this behaviour inevitable? How do parents cope? Especially with both a baby and a toddler?

I know I have this all to come and I am dreading it!!!!!

It's prime goblin age. You couldn't pay me enough to parent another toddler, and mine weren't even aggressive. Just whiny, tantrummy demanding little nightmares.

They're brilliant now, though.

My 5 were never like that and most I knew weren't like that.
I have a couple of friends whose toddlers were absolutely grindingly awful and now they're older they're just as bad. Without the hair pulling.

My DD (now a lovely but slightly stroppy 8yo) was an adorable toddler. She was just naturally well behaved. I never had to really tell her off. She was never aggressive or unpleasant in the typical toddler ways. She was fun, amenable and careful. Even at messy play she would stay clean.

My son (now a rough and tumble but also gentle and caring) 5yo was a bit of a demon toddler. Very very demanding and forceful, and had huge tantrums. It was hell.

DS had a ‘phase’ that started at around 16 months of being aggressive on occasion. It was borne from frustration - he would bite and hit and was worse when tired.

You could say No and discipline him and install boundaries all you liked but it wouldn’t make a blind bit of difference. It always makes me laugh wryly when people say parents are afraid to use the word No - DS knows full well what no means but all too often ignores it!

His aggressive behaviour stopped as he got more language . He’s two years and two months now and he’s a lovely boy.

Evolution has made babies with toddlers in mind. That’s how they survive their siblings. As an outsider you may think holy crap, how is the baby sibling not dead but I can guarantee you the most important and exciting person in your babies life will be that rambunctious toddler. Ours always thought older toddler siblings were it and frankly we were always dogshit in comparison, only held in revere by our eldest who didn’t have older toddler siblings to idolise🤣.

They all have their moments but your friends with the mad toddlers sound useless tbh. Also, there is nothing wrong with telling another child no or removing them from a situation where they are hurting your younger DC if the parents are not managing the situation. Sometimes it’s just lazy parenting. If you know your toddler is going through a bitey phase, you watch them like a hawk!

Toddlers are awful and, although I loved my child, I didn't like him during the toddler stage. It was exhausting and he was just generally horrible to be around.

Thankfully he's grown into a lovely child (although still a bit wild) and became easier from age 4, but he's an only child because I can't go through it again. Friends all had the same issue with their toddlers and you just battle through until its over. DH and I are also very firm parents! No laziness here.

Mine often didn’t listen and had to be carried out of places about 25% of the time. BUT she never hit another child (would definitely smack me or DH, hair pulling was the worst). They have little executive function at this age. Being around groups or in noisy places can definitely contribute to general feralness. Few kids are like that 100% of the time and few kids will be easy and chill 100% of the time.

But yeah toddlers can be bloody awful, if it makes you feel any better DD is 3 now and slowly turning into a slightly more reasonable person.

My two year old sometimes screams, and she's been known to throw herself on the ground in classic toddler tantrum style. But she's never hit, bit, smacked or pulled hair in anger. She's got a little sister who she's never been aggressive with (though she has been known to tell me to put her in the baby gym, so I can give her (the toddler) my full attention!!) So, no, they're not all like that.

I have a 2 year old and 3.5 year old..I would describe the last couple of years as chaotic, messy, exhausting, hilarious, loud, emotional.

They both went through very brief periods of hitting and testing the waters. But we nipped that in the bud pretty quickly. I remember my eldest being bitten twice by a boy at nursery, his mum was mortified but it didn't happen again and they were best of friends.

Personally, I prefer toddlers to baby's. I sometimes call them little drunk adults or psychopaths but all that aside, they can so be so unbelievably sweet and cuddly and funny!

Most toddlers are sometimes very very sweet and sometimes feral little monsters. This is healthy and normal. Please please read a bit about child development and the damage you could do a 2 year old by giving them “a proper telling off” ☹️ I really hope you don’t do that to your baby either. I cannot stress how important how you the grown up respond to your very small child’s difficult behaviour is for their future wellbeing. I know it’s hard, but it’s the truth.

Given the place you're at observing all this I'd blame it on distracted parents trying to have some adult time.

Toddlers find it hard to communicate verbally especially with one another and get cross if they want something someone else has or if they are just attention seeking. Adults need to be right there to help them deal with their feelings and interactions. Some children do go through biting and hair pulling stages.

On the while though toddlers are curious and funny and need to be warned ahead of time what is happening next. And time to be independent- this is the stage many want to do things for themselves.... really slowly...

They are sweet really!

OP good luck in six months' time

No but to be more constructive - yes, it's normal. I think that the way you are describing it is quite sensationalised. The fact it's happening at every group you go to makes me think this is normal toddler behaviour that you are catastrophising. They can bite, usually due to teething, rarely anybody other than the family. They grow out of this and in the meantime it can be redirected to something appropriate like a teething ring. Some children do go through a more intense biting phase but this seems to be isolated to specific children, and the amount of times I've seen a toddler in this phase bite a child in a group is about once or twice (I have been to lots of groups). They may hit and throw out of frustration. This is normal and while you can tell off an 18 month / 2 year old (and many people do, so that it's clear disapproval from the start) you might as well tell off the plastic animal they are throwing for all the good it will do. Telling off is not effective in isolation. At this age the most effective thing is close supervision, interrupting the action before it can hurt anybody and helping them to calm down, which helps them to develop their own self regulation skills, then modelling/showing the action that you want (known as redirection).

Babies and toddlers are also in a very intense experimentation phase where they have to try out everything to see what happens. That is how they find out that it is a bad idea, because they don't know that yet. That means pulling hair, biting, throwing things, experimenting with sounds. It might be that the groups you're attending are a bit more robust/aimed at older children, and you're better suited to the crawlers and rollers type groups still if your baby is of a quieter disposition. Without wanting to sound rude, having her hair pulled and having a toy thrown at her is nowhere near "serious harm" and is part of the reason you go to these groups - to expose them to other kids and rough and tumble is a part of that. Trust me, siblings do much worse to each other and nothing terrible happens. You should obviously supervise them but I think you are catastrophising wildly. The other parents are probably more laid back because they are used to this behaviour and know it is a normal stage of development. Yes, it might be your toddler getting their hair pulled this week but next week your toddler will be the antagoniser, so best not to get too het up about it. It's all OK and how they learn social rules and what it acceptable.

That said, it's completely normal to feel overprotective of your first baby, and see older children as some kind of great hulking monsters. As said, perhaps you aren't ready yet for this type of group and would find one aimed at older babies to be better than a toddler group.

I have a toddler 2.5 and a 10mth old. They all go through a stage of being independent and try things to get their own way. The biting, scratching, pulling hair etc doesn't last long at all. Same with the throwing things. It's just learning. A baby can't let go of things on purpose, then suddenly they learn how to so drop things constantly, a toddler learns they can actually throw so they do. They soon learn what's appropriate. My toddler will push her brother over when he gets too close to what she's playing with and she's learning to tell us so we can move him without pushing. The most harm she did was smack him with a toy once and she had a red mark. Obviously they need watching as she tries to feed him and when he's trying to stand she tries to help him pulling on his head. She hasn't actually done anything too bad and doesn't go out to deliberately hurt him. When toddlers have a jump in their understanding and learning they can act out as they have new things they want to try out. She recently learned to jump unaided so she's jumping off everything to test limits. They soon stop as they learn what is appropriate and what isn't and what is dangerous. They just try it all first x

Toddlers being dicks is part of their development. You being horrified at the whole thing while your baby is still young is part of yours!

I’ve had three toddlers. All been hard work to various degrees but no smacking, biting or clambering all over me because I simply didn’t allow it. You can implement boundaries from the word go but plenty don’t these days.

I’m sure your baby won’t be a toddler like those ones, OP. After all, you have the benefit of all the MN wisdom on how to put boundaries in place

For those posters saying about not telling off/saying no.

Can I ask why? Why is it fear based parenting?

Not being goady, really curious. I’ve looked into ‘gentle parenting’ and I don’t see how it is ‘gentle’, it’s just about treating your child with respect which is a given.

But I don’t see why, if your toddler bites someone what’s wrong with giving them a proper telling off? Yes of course they might have ‘fear’ to do it again because of being told off, but isn’t that the point?

I mean, I don’t punch people in the face even when I really really want to. Because first of all that’s not nice but secondly I would be scared of getting arrested. So I’m scared of the consequences.

Isnt a toddler not biting/scratching because their scared of being told off the same thing?

Not doing fake wide-eyed questioning, I really want to know why it’s bad to tell off a toddler?

But I don’t see why, if your toddler bites someone what’s wrong with giving them a proper telling off? Yes of course they might have ‘fear’ to do it again because of being told off, but isn’t that the point?

Enter my toddler. You can do all the telling off you like, he gives ZERO FUCKS. So I can yell at him until I am blue in the face. Won't stop him doing it again, believe me. I've given him a proper telling on many an occasion but it does nothing other than raise my blood pressure further.

No, that is absolutely not the point.

You don’t want your toddler to not do it again because they’re scared of being told off. They won’t understand the reason behind why and are more likely to do that behaviour again in future, just when you’re not looking.

If you put a boundary in place you should be able and prepared to explain, role model and show why it’s there. You want toddlers to know they shouldn’t hit/bite/pinch etc because of how it makes someone else feel.

You want them to understand feelings and the reasons why.

Toddlers don’t do these things to be malicious. They do it because their brains are not fully formed yet and they’re frustrated.

So a boundary needs to be set that yes it’s okay to feel angry/upset/stressed, but it’s not okay to hit/bite/pinch and they need to know why, because that is how they manage their feelings and understand not to do it again.

Fear based parenting does not stop a behaviour. It just means the child becomes more sneaky in how they do it.

Hi OP, mine's 6 now and never did any of that, the only time she'd run off is in the park/when out on a walk.
I didn't see this behaviour with the friends she grew up with either. There was the odd time in nursery where she'd get bitten by another child but nursery were on it and it stopped quickly.

@JustAskingMate

Toddlers are all little shits sometimes, and that time is invariably when they're over stimulated because there's exciting things going on, or new people etc.

Put yourselves in their shoes: -

"I've just become mobile, literally everything is new and exciting. I want to try all this stuff because I've never done it before but there's all these giants around who are very stern and keep telling me to stop doing things.

All I want to do is shove this carrot up my nose. I've never shoved a carrot up my nose before, it may be the best thing ever, how will I know if the stern giants won't let me try. Its just like yesterday when they wouldn't let me go out without trousers. I just wanted to feel the wind on my legs, why are they so averse to experimentation?

Its not like I can explain to them anyway. I speak perfectly clearly and most of them look at me like I'm drunk! So I have to get their attention in anyway I can, and if that involves headbutting them until they let me go, then so be it. "

I think when you get to the point of actually parenting a toddler, you start to understand their point of view. Because they do have one. By that point they're little people, with opinions and wants and curiosity and a need for some independence all coupled up with a bundle of spectacularly unregulated emotions.

The toddler stage was when I started actually enjoying being a parent. It was fucking knackering though!

Mine were rowdy and difficult at times, but neither of them would ever have hurt a baby. Sounds like weak parenting by some of your friends.

My daughter is 3 and it was very clear that she wasn't allowed to behave like this! Obviously they all push boundaries but we absolutely do not allow any kind of smacking or hitting or kicking. All kids have their moments, but if I saw her behave like the way you've described she'd be in big trouble!!
Some of my "friends" kids however.... hitting, scratching, pulling the hair of babies!!! And the parents seem to think it's adorable.

Toddlers will have their moments (I think 18 months to 2yo is the most challenging in terms of behaviour and boundary pushing) but all the ones who are told "that's not ok" tend to not do it again!!

Either you've been unlucky or you just don't like toddlers (which is fine... we don't have to like everyone 😄!).

I've seen toddlers display all the behaviours you've mentioned but not usually for extended periods and usually interspersed with moments of calmness and affection that make you think "aww!". You do have to guard babies and smaller children around them but very few are malicious.

Imo (but I like toddlers in general - I've only ever come across a couple I couldn't warm to) there is absolutely nothing cuter than a mischievous 2 year old bent on causing mayhem.