to think that toddlers are inherently kind of over emotional and not prone to any kind of logic? (except the special toddler kind that explains why they *must* have biscuits for breakfast)

[jaggythistle]

i keep hearing DH saying to almost 3 year old DS1 "why are you being so silly DS1?" when he bursts into tears over something which appears not to matter much.

e.g. "not that cup daddy, i need one with animals on!"

i really just want to say it's because he's a toddler. personally my head would explode if i tried to work out why x toy must accompany him to bed/the toilet/breakfast and why one day he loves y food and the next it's yuk.

AIBU?

I might show him this thread. as long as you don't all say I'm BU.

My partner sometimes tries to reason with our two-year-old like that. I occasionally step in and point out what the issue is (ie he's two). But my partner used to try to reason with my cats so I suppose I was prepared!

NB The cats are still around, OH has just stopped trying to reason with them now. I guess he's too busy with DS.

YANBU.

My ex didn't understand the toddler either. I don't understand but if he asks for the blue cup and not the red cup I know it means he wants the yellow one

My DH tries to argue reason with our toddler. When DS says "no" DH asks why.... I know it can't end well!!

But the modern thinking is you're not meant to say "no" to your dc, you should reason with them.

Naturally when my toddler was screaming that they wanted ice cream for breakfast all I had to do was explain that it was not a good idea and once I'd told them why they stopped srceaming and said theyunderstood perfectly and ate the healthy porridge instead

naturally

My dh is the same. He can't get his head round the toddler mindset at all. He has sometimes been known to exclaim in perplexity, 'But they're so illogical!'
He will often prolong a tantrum by trying to explain to the child WHY they can't have the knife, whereas if you just take the knife away and put it where they can't see it they will forget about it in an instant.

MIL makes it worse by insisting that when dh was a toddler you could reason with him. Well, maybe. But given that she used to smack him too it can't have worked that well.

we do try to explain stuff to be fair to DH, but if we're heading for tears i tend to go for distraction.

oh look, I've found some stickers...

My dh is like this with our dd who is a teenager. He can't understand why teenagers don't behave like sensible 40 year olds!

To be fair, jaggy, I don't find stickers much of a distraction for DH - flashing my tits at him, on the other hand...

Do not try and get inside the mind of a toddler. That way lies madness I tells yer.

Reasons my 2 yo DD could not sleep the other night:-

1.My hair hurts
2.I need to say night night to the cats (that live next door...)
3.There's no rainbow (in a pitch black room)

All I could do was smooth her hair, say night night to the cats through the wall and tell her there might be a rainbow in the morning and if she shut her eyes really tight she might dream about a rainbow

She also will not eat any food that has come in a wrapper without the wrapper still on it. DH made the fatal mistake of throwing the paper from her Cornetto away and expected her to hold it by the actual cone. It was a rookie mistake. He paid for it. These things make sense to her. How we'll laugh about it in future years...

I don't like baked bean juice touching my fried egg - we've all got our little quirks

Oh I can see DH heading this way.

He can't understand why our 11 month old keeps reaching for the forbidden object even when he has been told many times not to. In fact, even when you've just told him and are in the middle of telling him again...his little hand still reaches out whilst he's looking at you.

I've said he's not doing it to be "naughty" as he has no concept of what naughty is. He's just experimenting and probably can't understand why we spend 80% of our time handing him interesting things for him to look at but then object to him touching other interesting things...

he'd probably faint Poledra. DS2 is only 20 weeks old and has seen a lot more of them than DH recently

To be fair Devon sometimes my hair hurts. But it's usually due to a massive hangover. Which presumably doesn't apply to your DD2.

As you were.

Be prepared for it not to end with toddlerhood, my DH doesn't understand children at all and just can't get that sometimes the explanation for behaviour is just that the child is a child. It infuriates me, getting het up about every tiny thing is the route to a heart attack imo.

YANBU, The Cub W.L.F. is quite a reasonable child most of the time but when you ask how he want his samidge i.e. cut up or not you need to do the opposite of what he asked for or all hell breaks loose. Drives Mr Tigga up the wall

He'sWeirdHe'sThreeTiggaxx

The look on DP's face when he first witnessed what happened when there was a broken banana was priceless..

I think he thinks I'm being too soft on DS when I just take the broken one for myself and give DS a pristine new one (holding my breath that this one doesn't break too), but my life would be impossible if I tried to out stubborn or reason with a two year old.

i think DH reckons I'm being too soft too. i think I'm just making life easier.

if it's something harmless like a special bowl or extra song at bedtime I'd rather just go with it and attempt to retain the calm.

if he's scaling furniture or raiding cupboards on the other hand I'd take a different approach.

exactly jaggy - and it's not like I judge (much) when by the end of Saturday (when I work) and I find DP flaked out on the bed with DS sat next to him watching Peppa Pig :)

My favourite toddler melt down from my niece

'I need my toast cut into squares'
'Noooooooo not squares I didn't want squares, I wanted twiangles'
'Nooo not this kind of toast, I wanted Golden toast'

finishing in tears with her favourite expression 'Everything's wuined'

Never try to have a reasoned debate with a toddler, they will always win by shamelessly moving the goalposts.

DH is a SAHD, i don't want him to be totally frazzled when i go back to work!

the trying to understand hurts my head.

OH keeps asking 3yo DS what time he woke up in the morning

And why did he make a video on daddy's phone at 2:30 am?

I really don't know what sort of response he is expecting

at the moment every single meal starts with the phrase "i don't want.." whatever is served. took us weeks to figure out just to pretend not to notice and he'd just eat it.

my alternative technique is to serve a minuscule portion of dry cereal whatever he claims to want in a tiny ramekin (makes it special, like) and then he just eats that first and forgets he didn't want toast.

YANBU. I was up till 3am with an uncharacteristically screechy 2 yo having a cyclical conversation thus:

DS- MUMMMMEEEEEEEEEEE HEEEEEEELP!
me - what is it, petal?
DS - I don't WANT IT!!!
me - what don't you want?
DS - I don't KNOOOOOOOOOOOW!

This morning he is snotty so I presume what he 'didn't want' was the blocked up feeling in his nose. As far as getting sense out of very little folk though, pretty much par for the course.

Favourite non-sleeping excuse came from dd2 age about 6 at the time. "I needed to know what colour shirt you're wearing daddy"