Toddlers can be horrific, can't they?

[MulesToJules]

Argh! This is the worst possible stage.

Newborn was amazing. Small baby amazing. Sitting up and early Walker baby also amazing.

Now he's a toddler and good Christ, this is hard.

Biting. Scratching. Tantrums. Never ever happy.

He also seems behind to some toddlers, although he started walking at 8.5 months. He still very much looks like a baby, and doesn't really speak apart from Mummy and No.

"Mummy no" being the ultimate combo of choice.

And the escaping! He escapes all cots, so can't have a cot now. He escapes car seats, had to find one that he can't actually escape from. We have 3 kinds of pushchair and he can escape both.

Escapes high chair and seats. Can't turn my eyes for a single second or he will climb out and potentially kill himself.

It's so frustrating. So either let him on the floor to cause havoc 24/7 or keep telling him to stop and keep putting him back wherever he's strapped into.

Also refusing to sleep until a ridiculous time in the evening, meaning no time for me or DH. Just constant screaming if he isn't allowed up. I tried seeing how it played out, he kept on for 2 whole hours before.

Someone send help in the form of alcohol

Sorry, should have tagged socallbemaybe

It’s not you, it’s them. Solidarity.

Have a 4 and a 6 year old, and long for the days of 18 months. Mine see to have got worse and worse as they got older, where everyone kept telling me it gets better! The baby days were bliss, everyone told me that was the hardest. Nope, not for me anyway. Then was told once you are out of the terrible twos, its easy.

Mind, it IS a lot easier in the sense that they go to school so you get some kind of break. The screaming and whinging only starts from 3pm each day. Which is a bonus I guess!

Toddler twins here, I’m near tears most days! All of the sympathy and coffee.

Alcohol I don’t do, not because I don’t want to but because I have HORRENDOUS hangovers no matter how little I drink. I made that mistake once 🤢

I hear this 👋🏻 DH on a stag this weekend PFB has decided it's time to ......

• Climb stair gates and hoist himself to one leg over - all the way if I wasn't watching
• jump OFF the arms of the settees
• jump up out of the high chairs and island fixed seats
• hang off the handles of the bifold doors and ...
• start climbing the windows Mission Impossible style

Breathe

This too shall pass

I found 18m absolutely horrific in fact 9m to about 3 was awful. DD’s cousin is 2.5 and I’m always like thank goodness that’s over and feel very smug with my 4.25 year old (although she definitely has her moments)
It’s the whinging because they want to do things but can’t, the constant danger pants, the refusing to go in the buggy/car seat/trolley/sling but wanting to be carried, food refusing, running away, putting things in their mouth
I was a nervous wreck

Dd is 2.2. The tops of my arms are covered in bruises where the little sod has bitten or pinched me the last few days. She’s done the same to her older sister, along with throwing a piece of wooden fruit at her head so hard it caused a huge egg sized bump.

She’s a fucking nightmare.

I had a threenager, he is now 12. I've shocked myself recently by being nostalgic for the toddler years. He was full of energy, could be manipulative, some tantrums etc, remember being on my knees for the first year when DS2 came along he was nearly 3. BUT, I am nearly 10 years older with lots less energy and I really miss DS1's innocent happiness and happy go lucky approach to life. He is angry and struggles with anxiety. He swears at me and regularly refuses school. My God it is tough, I dont really like him right now, couldn't even bring myself to post on facebook when it was his Birthday yesterday, he was ungrateful for his presents. We are getting help and I'm hoping that things get better. DS2 is 9 and tbh far easier, long may that last

My 22 month old nearly ended up on eBay today

That appalling... how COULD you?

Homemade stuff goes on Etsy fgs.

My 2yo went missing at home today. Rest of family out, I was studying, she’d come in and out to see me, I could hear her coughing now and then. (Has a Cold, not choking) then it went quiet, went out to look for her, back door opened, checked the yard all over. Not there. Checked upstairs, downstairs, in wardrobes, pantry. Called out, no answer, no coughing. Checked the laundry. She’s sitting in there piling cat food into the water bowl. Pulled the cat food container off shelf and spilled on floor, played in litter box and just made a general mess of things. I never learn. When it’s deathly quiet that’s always where she is, up to mischief in the cat things

One positive is being able to take it easier if I need to , as I have the last couple of days cause of having a horrible lurgy.

8:50pm and my two (2.5) are wide awake. Took them to the park today and they ran about non stop for an hour before the torrential rain came on. Home, dinner and they had a nap AT 5PM!!!! No amount of picking them up, talking...NOTHING woke them up. They’d be all groggy and just go back over.

So it’ll be a 11:30pm bedtime tonight thank you very much.

Eejits.

I agree. Although my DS has turned 4 and then it’s hard. Up until that point people give you sympathetic looks when they scream at you and say ‘you’re doing a great job’ once they turn 4 it’s ‘your just a bad parent’

My DS is almost 2 and no one bats an eyelid at what she does!!

Someone upthread mentioned makaton and for me it hasn't helped as he will only sign things if he can see them and that doesn't mean he wants them only that he can see them. Pig, dog and bunny are his fave signs.

For the posters scared of impending toddlerhood I'll put some good bits down having had my moan near the top of the thread... he is hilarious, he gives the absolute best hugs in the world, he finally really seems to engage in days out, when there are more adults than just me he can be really really fun to take out and about, every now and then after a really busy day he will still climb up onto my lap and fall asleep, his giggle is the most infectious sound (even if he is giggling because he is running his toy car over the dog), if you go out and he is a complete and utter nightmare you can guarantee that in the 2 whole minutes he is walking nicely you will hear some other parent pointing him out to their child as isn't that little boy walking nicely, can you hold my hand like that?

Still sucks a lot of the time but he is mostly awesome (or maybe that's just cos he's asleep now!)

Three nearly broke me. I used to cry in my car starting my work shift at 2pm, having been run ragged from 6am. I was sooo tired.

The good news is from four it got SO much better.

There is a very funny thread I remember a few years ago about a MNer whose children were older who babysat her 2yo niece, who got up to all kinds of escapades and naughtiness, she was exhausted, and it was hilarious

Solidarity - I will be there with DS2 next year. They do get a little more sense at some point I promise.

Yeah man toddlers are hard work.

I constantly feel like I'm on a knife edge with mine, on the cusp of a meltdown if I don't do what I'm expected (unknowingly to me of course) to do.

Not sure what the solution is? Exercise? Used to work with DS but it just pisses DD off...

I have 4 children and I never understood how a child could be feral until I had my youngest, the relief when he I put him to bed at 7 is immense.

@WeShouldOpenABar mine too. also likes to shout "mummy booby!" whilst groping; any time, any place.

Mine ran away from me, round a lake, as I was laying a blanket down for us to sit on. Loads of people just stayed sat on benches and laughed as he ran past them confused

^

This reminds me of the time me and my ma were 'babysitting' DS and DN. Fucking rampant toddlerdom a go go. Went to the park. Little ornamental lake.

Did they take the piss out of us or what. It was like a fucking relay race : one boy out of the lake, the other one in, back to the blanket, if it wasn't one it was the other. Hysterical giggling from the two pests of course.

I slept well that night.

in many ways i prefer my just two year old now, he's much more fun. but THE WHINING a switch flicked about a week after his second birthday, honestly.

Haha Bellsbus love it. I must admit we were sooo smug with my son. ‘Oh we don’t have a naughty step, he is just sooo well behaved because we are great parents’ then my daughter came along.......feral is a great way to describe her also!

Smug parenting with DS1 (all the parenting techniques worked), then DD came along and brought us down a peg or two (some of the techniques worked).

Then DS2 came along and we're totally fucked (NOTHING WORKS!)

Finally found that thread. Thought it may raise a smile. They do get better, and until then, just take lots of photos/video, for blackmail purposes :o and drink wine.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/mumsnet_classics/1852343-Well-That-went-well-didnt-it?pg=1

Ds was full on, high energy, impetuous - but he was so very sweet, calmed down very easily from a tantrum with a hug, never threw himself on the floor or did that thing where they seemingly turn to jelly and was, to all intents and purposes, a pretty easy toddler - easy going, adaptable, no major dramas (but fiddled with everything incessantly).

Then we had dd, six years later. I am so pleased we left a big age gap. She rules this house with an iron fist, a totally formidable character. I distinctly remember about a year ago, she was 18 months, her refusing to get in the car until she had supervised me packing her doll's pushchair into the boot of my car. That was when she began choosing her own clothes and insisting on doing everything all by herself. That was when it all began! 😂