To seriously consider increasing nursery time for 2yo before baby's born

[Endofmytetherfinally]

She does 2 days at present but has become so difficult at home on the other days I'm genuinely worried about my ability to cope with her and a newborn.

I've tried techniques from 'how to talk so little kids will listen', I've tried ignoring (non dangerous behaviour) and love bombing anything good. Genuinely don't know what else to do.

I don’t think the techniques you suggest are appropriate for a two year old. Taking a toy away for drawing on walls would just upset and confuse them, they’d not see or understand the link between their drawing and them losing a toy! The naughty step is also a very outdated discipline technique. Putting a two year old on a naughty step for pulling a cat’s fur makes no sense, you’ve not taught the child the acceptable way to touch the cat, just removed her from the situation.
The giving timing warnings “we will do this in two minutes, you have one more minute of playing” is also ridiculous to say to a two year old. They don’t know what a minute is! You can tell them what’s coming next, for example “we’re playing with the dolls now, then we’re going to go for a bath” would be useful but giving them timings means absolutely nothing and will just cause confusion.

I agree @Coffeeandchocs and I'm not trying to use discipline that's beyond her understanding but I'm desperate to find a way to stop her shouting and screaming when we say no. We try the positive asking what we do want instead of what we don't like talk in a quiet voice and explain why, you're scaring the neighbours etc. But nothing seems to work and it absolutely shreds my nerves.

I think some shouting and screaming does just fall within the “terrible twos” stage. They’re frustrated an awful lot of the time. I’m sure you know this, though I just wanted to emphasise the point that you may well not be doing anything wrong and it might, like a lot of things with little ones, be a phase.
I try to offer choices as much as I can with my two year old, I think it satisfies the craving they have to have some control. Whether my child has a satsuma or banana for snack makes no odds to me but gives him a sense of his opinion being important when I give him that choice. Anything that you can bring her choices into I think will really help. “Do you want to go to the park or for a walk?”
I also keep consequences of his actions to things he can see. I understand why you’d tell your daughter she is scaring the neighbours as it attaches some feeling to it which is good, but does she care about the neighbours? I’d say, “I know you’re angry, but shouting makes mummy feel sad”.
With regards to her wanting to be picked up instead of walking. Are you sure where you’re expecting her to walk isn’t too long of a distance? They do tire really easily. I also find walks late afternoon always end in my little one wanting to be picked up, he’s more tired then but in the morning he will walk for a lot longer. Have you tried a scooter or balance bike?

I don’t mean to bombard you but I’ve just remembered another thing that’s really helped us. Limiting how much we say no, so that it’s reserved for the times we really need to put a stop to something. I made a note in my phone one morning how many times I said “no!” to my son, and it was 32 times! Can you imagine being told no to things you wanted to do, that many times!? Maybe you could try that, see how many times you’re actually stopping her from doing something. Then think about what you’re saying no to. One of our big ones was climbing on the dining room chairs, I must have said no ten times to that alone. When you think about what you’re saying no to, do you really need to stop what they’re doing? My son was exploring and learning to climb, why did I actually need to stop that? I just needed to be there to make sure he was safe and allow him to do it. You’d think that would create a feral child haha, but it’s actually quite the opposite. He’s had enough of standing on the chairs now he’s figured it out and had a bit of fun with it and moved onto the next thing. We reserve the “no”s for things he absolutely cannot do, touching the fire, annoying the dog, turning the oven knobs etc. And because we are now saying it less, it has more of an effect and he listens more. It’s picking your battles really, when you ask them to do something think about why you’re asking. Is it because they’re doing something that’s annoying you, or are they doing something unsafe?

Thank you so much @Coffeeandchocs, really appreciate it. I actually do say it's scaring the neighbours because it's true, little boy next door says to his dad 'is she okay?' whereas mummy feels sad feels manipulative somehow although it's also true! And you're right she might care more about me then her.

I try and talk to her about it when she's calmed down but she doesn't know why or at least she can't seem to tell me. She just says her name sad which really upsets me too. Thanks for saying it's not necessarily something we're doing. I'm finding it very difficult and sure the pregnancy hormones aren't helping.

To be honest I'm very lenient and try not to say no much but my husband is incredibly risk averse as is his dad so she hears it more than I'd like. My parents were the same as you. Only for stuff that's dangerous. But to be fair I can't argue that climbing on the table or stepping into a road (suburban and very rarely cars around but still) when she's told no and why isn't dangerous..

Also I'm pretty sure she can walk, it's a short distance but she might be scared (lawnmower or other people approaching). When it is too far my issue is she doesn't want her dad picking her up, just mummy which really isn't possible.

If she can tell you she’s sad but not why then she’s struggling to process and show her emotions (normal for this age) so maybe teaching some techniques to express her feelings other than shouting and screaming might be useful too. Me and my little boy do stampy feet, if he starts screaming and throwing himself around I say “you’re angry, let’s do angry stamping feet!”, it redirects him to express his anger in a different way (that won’t scare the neighbours!). I stamp my feet and he does the same and it usually ends in giggles instead of crying. It doesn’t work all the time and usually I have to have suggested it before he is in full meltdown but it does work most of the time.
With the wanting you to pick her up instead of dad, this is something dad needs to work on with her. Make dad pick ups fun, put her on his shoulders, count to five steps then tickle, sing a song while holding her. It’s likely dad will have to take over more when the new baby is here so he needs to focus on improving that. It’s no one’s fault, kids tend to gravitate towards the main caregiver naturally, who can blame them? But if that’s becoming a problem now I’d suggest working on that before the new baby arrives.

Increase the nursery days and don't feel guilty. With her being at nursery, both her and the baby will get the attention they need. A newborn and a toddler need very different things. Toddler will be happy and entertained and baby can feed/nap in peace and you'll be able to take it to baby classes/swimming too.

When I had my second I kept 3 days for my 2yo increasing to 4 once he started pre-school at almost 4. It worked well and I felt able to cope on my 'both kids at home' days.

Thanks @Coffeeandchocs will try stamping feet. I've done 'can you draw how angry you are' but she's too small. Or doing grrr and trying to laugh her out of it but I don't think she gets it.

To be fair to her dad, I'm not really the main caregiver, he's very silly and playful with her and so hands on. We both do 4 days so they have plenty of time alone, I just think she's got some attachment issues with me now I'm pregnant.