Really struggling with defiant 2 year old, tears from both tonight :-(

[Copper13]

Long, sorry....
Can anybody please advise/suggest ways to stop things escalating into frustration and tears over annoying,frustrating behaviours?
DD has just turned 2 years old, placed with us 9 months ago. We love her to bits, she is beautiful, funny and very articulate. She also NEVER runs out if energy and has a very hard time listening and following instructions/requests (only on her own terms but maybe that's just being 2 years old [confused ]
She's a thrower, ie if we don't carefully watch for signals that she has had enough to eat or she doesn't like something, she will frisbee the plate across the room. We started off gently gently telling her that she shouldn't do it, just say "had enough, no more" etc, this worked for a while then restarted last week. Then we said she had to help tidy it up after dinner which she did, then she moved on to throwing it and immediately saying "me tidy up" whilst laughing. In the last couple of days H has taken to saying that if she does it again then there will be no Peppa Pig/Ben and Holly for the rest of the day. She whinges for a couple of minutes but then runs off to her next activity. I'm not that keen on this "punishment" because it doesn't mean anything to her at the time If she flings her breakfast she doesn't get the "punishment"until late afternoon or bedtime
when she normally watches an episode or two.
She also throws her teddies out of the bed and calls for us to pick them up. We have a "if they get thrown again they'll stay on the shelf" rule. Ending up on the shelf is an almost nightly occurrence. (I always put her muzzie cloth and favourite toy back in with her)
In the last few days she has worked out how to remove her bed sack, sleep suit and nappy... She did it 5 x last night and peed on the bed meaning bed needed stripping etc. she eventually fell asleep with exhaustion with a vest and nappy on.
During bath tonight we chatted about how she needs to keep her clothes on at night so that she doesn't get cold and she said "yes mummy, brrrrr"!
I put her to bed tonight in the sack and poppered vest and she immediately started taking the sack off. I asked her not to but had already decided that if she did, I would not fight it, she won't be cold tonight without it. She took it off. Then started trying to take her vest off. I told her if she took it off she would end up with the toys on the shelf. She stood up and calmly handed me the toys one by one to put on the shelf "there you go mummy"
For some reason this pushed my buttons so I calmly (externally) walked out and sat in my bed for 5 minutes. When I went back in I picked her up and tried to give her a cuddle and talk calmly about keeping her clothes on. She screamed at me to " go out mummy" slapped me 3 times and pulled my hair. I'm afraid to say I rather firmly plonked her back in bed, raised my voice to "don't hit mummy, it makes mummy sad" and stormed out. She cried [cry] , I cried I walked back in, she giggled and said "want sack on" I picked her up again, gave her a big kiss and cuddle, told her I love her and always will but that mummy got a bit too cross and that I was sorry" she ignored this and asked for her sack again. I put itin her bed and asked her to lie on the sack so I could do it up, she grabbed the sack and threw it out of the bed. I told her that I was saying goodnight now and going downstairs.i said " if you don't want the sack that's fine, love you, goodnight darling" and left the room. Then I burst into tears again.
Is she being a particularly wilful toddler? How do other parents deal with these sorts of scenarios? I feel very inadequate as a parent at the moment and that I'm not dealing with this stage of toddlerdom well at all. The guilt that I plonked her down and shouted is enormous, I feel like because she is adopted I shouldn't ever let her push my buttons less I snap like tonight and make her feel that all adults are shouty and angry.
I really try not to "sweat the small stuff" and I know I'm sometimes guilty of trying to over explain why we do or don't do things to her. She is ONLY 2 after all.

Xx

I have no experience of adoption so apologies if this is teaching granny to suck eggs, but - were you taught about schemas? Repetitive patterns of behaviour that babies and toddlers use to learn about how the world works. this might be useful

If your DD is in the middle of a "trajectory" schema (ie throwing things a lot), telling her off isn't going to make the slightest bit of difference other than to upset you both. She needs to throw things, it's part of how her brain is developing. She isn't doing to to be naughty or to upset you!

I have an almost-3 year old. To keep myself sane I have spent the last year or so doing a lot of strategic ignoring . Undesirable behaviour is ignored, and all the good stuff praised. It seems to work ok and my DS behaves just as well/ badly as other children of his age... My sanity is more intact than it would be if I were constantly telling him off though!

And I'm afraid wet beds and nappy accidents are also par for the course! Have you tried offering a potty as an alternative to wearing a nappy? Some children do decide they want to potty train young.

I would also just listen to her and give her autonomy over bedding and nightclothes- if she prefers to be cold, that's her choice!

Relax - none of us know what we're doing, we're all just winging it really! Try a week of not sweating the small stuff or the medium-sized stuff, praise absolutely everything positive, and have as much fun together as you can!

Great advice given here. If it's any consolation, OP, my dd is/was exactly the same. I have an older ds though, so we'd been through the toddler stuff before and had all the worrying done with him.

A couple of suggestions. Rt the throwing food, plates etc, totally agree with ignoring what can be ignored. Also, get those plates and bowls that have suction cups on the bottom. THey won't stop her throwing but it gives you more time to grab it before it gets thrown.

Dd has just come out (I hope!!) of the hitting phase. If she hit me, dh would cuddle me and say 'o poor mummy, hitting hurt her. Give mummy a cuddle to say sorry.' She generally would because she hates being left out of anything. Then I'd show her gentle hands and get her to show me her 'gentle hands'. It sounds daft but she got to the stage when she would be about to lash out but would stop herself and rub gently instead (which we would praise to high heaven!)

Also agree with others, she's too young to have discussions with- she's living in the now.

One final thing, I wouldn't use a naughty step with a child who has been adopted. When you went out of the room to calm down and then came back in and she hit you, I think she was mad with you for leaving her. We were advised on our prep course not to have time outs, but to have time ins where you sit quietly and unresponsively with your child on your lap facing away from you but being cuddled by you until they calm down.

just another thought. I think she has got used to you putting the toys on the shelf. She no longer thinks it is a punishment, just what always happens. I don't think she was being defiant to give them to you.
We had a Houdini daughter (not adopted) and we used sleeping bags until our children were three years old (three kids). She used to unzip it. So we turned it back to front. That worked for a while. The next step is climbing out of the cot, be warned. We always used one layer thin (unpadded) cotton sleeping bags and put layers of blankets if it was cold.
The other thing I remember but it is only with hindsight, is that they go from being easy to settle at night to being really quite reluctant to let you out of their sight. It is a form of separation anxiety which seems to kick in at 2/3. Because bedtime worked before parents tend to think they are doing something "wrong" to have a child that isn't settling (or child is doing something "wrong") You may have to change your whole routine. Shorter perhaps, or stay in her bedroom until she falls asleep bustling around, folding, tidying etc.
Also, if she likes throwing, why not try and do as much throwing as you can in the daytime, outside when it doesn't matter. Try and redirect her throwing. She could throw bread to ducks, or a ball to you, or try and get a ball into a big bucket.

It's not called the terrible twos for nothing...

She sounds like my DD - we worked out in the end that DD needs to be in control and also will never back down: she needs to be given an. " out ". So she doesn't want her toys being taken away, but she'd rather that than have to accept she is wrong . We have to come up with all sorts of lateral excuses for her: "are you cross because x happened?" for example.

If it's any help, DD is four and now very rarely dies this sort of stuff, it won't last forever (even though it feels that way right now)

And I disagree with the pp who said she's too small to understand the concept of "being loved forever ". I say similar stuff to DD all the time, and firmly believe it's helpful to her. Kids who have had huge changes and upheaval in their lives deserve to be told this, even if their understanding is currently limited.

If it's any help, my sister just texted me a photo of my beautiful niece, who is almost two, stark naked in her cot this morning, having removed pjs and nappy, and with poo smeared all over the cot!

I think it's a normal stage for all toddlers. DS takes his clothes off quite regularly but hasn't figured out his nappy just yet, thank god.

That "schema" information was really useful, all though I have a feeling that my son will be going through the "trajectory" stage for a good few years more!! I try to convince myself that athletes and Olympians probably spent a lot of their childhoods throwing stuff around and jumping off furniture!!