DH huge rows with nearly 2 year old

[MoaningSickness]

So my 21 month old is gorgeous and wonderful and of course, irritating as fuck in that way that only a toddler can be.

I mostly manage not to scream and gnash my teeth when I realise she has managed to smuggle food down her shirt from lunch and lovingly spread in on the sofa, or Andrew puppied the loo roll... But DH is getting increasingly cross with her, for what I consider to be normal behaviour for her age.

I popped out this evening as they went into the bathroom. When I returned, they were still in there, she was wailing, and he gave a massive tirade about how she had done X,Y and Z and made a mess 'even when he asked her not to' and apparently they had been locked in a 45 minute stand off where he said they weren't leaving the room til she tidied away the mess she had made and she was refusing/crying.

I told DH to go take a moment and regain his calm, he accused me of undermining him, I said I would get her to tidy but he needed to calm down, so he went and we tidied.

I tried to talk to him later, but he kept saying she needs to learn she can't make a mess, etc, and I think she is just to young to really get the consequences of her actions. He says she is old enough to understand 'no'.

I don't think it helps that she is very verbal so she appears older than she is. For example she will say 'sorry' if you tell her to, but I don't think she understands the concept of being sorry at all. Or DH will get her to say she promises she won't do X, which she faithfully parrots, but I don't believe she has the faintest idea what a 'promise' is, so it's hardly surprising when she does the thing two minutes later.

I don't want to undermine him, but when I came in and he launched into 'she did this, she did that' it was more like listening to a sibling telling tales on how it is all the other child's fault than a 40 year old talking about a 1 year old.

I think DH and I have very different ideas about the level of behaviour to expect from a child her age, and I don't honestly know which of us is off base. Aibu or is he?

He needs a basic book on child development and what is to be expected at each age. He sounds like he simply has no idea.

You have sex with this manchild ? How ?

He is. Has he ever spent time with any other children? His expectations are ridiculous.

Omg
He sounds like a fuckwit
How can he expect a 2 year old to cope with that level of expectation???
He sounds abusive in my opinion 😢

He’s being an absolute idiot.

I’m cute upstairs to get away from my 11 month old. He’s being an absolute fucking pain but that’s not really his fault.

What’s he like normally? Has parenthood brought the douche out in him or is he always petty and unrealistic?

He's BU. She's too young to understand. She's doing things out of curiosity, not out of being naughty or rebellious.

Google age appropriate discipline and read the results together.

He doesn't have the tiniest clue about child development or behaviour. She doesn't even have theory of mind at that age, which is vital for empathy and true 'sorriness'.

Low word count directions are best, honestly. "Shoes on, please". so a 45 minute tirade is madness.

He sounds like an idiot, sorry.

Woah. I cant imagine trying to get a not-even-2-year-old child to tidy anything reliably, he was on a hiding to nothing. He needs to quit all that for like another 2yrs at least

He'll end up causing her anxiety if he doesn't cop himself on.

A bully

Of course it's him!

Print off some Mile stone stuff. Tell Jon this is only the beginning in terms of mess.

He can choose to relax about it, and make life easier for everyone or he can choose to remain un realistic and up tight about it and make everyone miserable.

Dd1 wrote on walls a little then stopped. I merely occasionally painted over it, no sweat.

Dd2 turned into quite the wall artist.
After a while we left her to it. We chose not to sweat it because it didn't mater.
She's grown out of it now (never did it elsewhere) it's painted over in two mins.

No sweat.
I can't understand people freaking out about this stuff.

He needs to read some books and attend a parenting class. ASAP.

He can't expect a two year old to understand they've been naughty and clean up! Obviously you know that. There's a huge difference between them putting a few toys back in a tub and correcting something when they've been naughty. He sounds a bit too stubborn if he's willing to be shut in a bathroom for 45mins to win an argument with a 2 year old

He sounds like he has very unrealistic expectations of what a 21 month old will behave like, understand, and also appropriate ways to speak to them if they're in trouble. A telling off, time out for a couple of minutes, calm explanation of what they did wrong and a sorry - ok in my book.

45 minutes of standing and shouting, not letting them leave the room? Sorry, that's bang out on so many levels. I can only imagine that will make her terrified of him.

2 year olds are still learning right from wrong and it's our job to help them understand this. He is going about it all wrong.

HIBVU, she doesn't get it yet, and probably won't for a while. She might understand 'no', but probably only for what she's doing at that exact moment.

Telling her to tidy up? For 45 minutes? Just no.

We dealt (and to some extent still deal, at 2.3) with this with supervision and moving all the stuff we didn't want her touching.

I know people who could get their 1yo to not touch things with 'no' with a lasting effect, but it didn't work for DD.

Christopher Green - Toddler Taming is written by a man. But it for him tonight.

Buy

Well she can understand the word no, but a 45 minute rant at a 2 year old is bloody ridiculous!

Has he met any other 2 year olds? His expectations are ridiculous! He needs a parenting course and observe children to see how it's done. You're absolutely right that sorry and promise are way too abstract for a 2 year old.

He’s being abusive towards a two year old, your own child.

What are you going to do to stop her being abused further?

Get him a good book on child development. Insist he reads it and acts on it. If he doesn't, LTB.

My H was really dreadful when DD2 came along and DD1 was 2. I had to get very assertive with her and make him realise he was wrong - and that what I had learned about child development was not just 'stuff off the Internet'.

He wasn't any better when they became teenagers either, but by then it was too late for our relationship in more ways than one.

Show him this image OP, pretty much sums up ages 1-4

My 21 month old points , grunts and says " car "
That's it !
He's still a baby and doesn't understand !!
Is he for real !! It's abusive

Your husband is a horrifying bully. Please take off the fucking blinders and protect your child from this abuse before he destroys her self-worth.

How is his behavior in other areas of life when he is frustrated or angry? Your baby sounds more mature than your husband! What was HIS childhood like? He cannot be the parent your daughter needs if he can't grasp basic child development. You were not undermining him you extracted him from further causing your daughter distress and if he can't understand that then you must need to have a very serious decision about your marriage