Omg please help!

[Toddlerhelpplease123]

Toddler is nearly 3.

Every morning when he wakes up. We get him out of his cot and he can run around upstairs or come into bed whilst his dad or I get morning drinks (milk/ tea etc.)

For the last couple of weeks he has started screaming in the morning when we go downstairs to get the drinks.

Like full on. Full wake the whole street up screaming non stop.

I honestly dont know what to do.

Obviously I have been being calm and saying whats wrong, etc. Explaining dad always comes back with the drinks. Offering other drinks that are already available in case hes thirsty (water, squash).

We have done ignoring as well. And sternly please stop screaming - because it is literally as loud as he can.

This has been a few weeks now. He’s just been getting worse. And obviously the return of his drinks is the culmination of the event and he just happily drinks his milk so I dont know whether he thinks his screaming is resulting in a positive outcome.

But we cannot have this.

What do people suggest?

I said to DP this morning maybe we need to try no milk. He can have a glass at breakfast but hes not going to die or starve of milk deprivation in the 20/30 minutes it takes everyone to get to breakfast.

Any ideas! Help please

@Ilovemyshed i inverted the stat and didn't change the response to negative. Only 44% of parents believe children should know how to use a book before school, 56% of parents don't believe that- it's that stat that astounds me. Also how they define knowing how to use a book appears to be turning pages instead of tapping and swiping.

However if they exhibit my lack of proof reading it's possible some just read it wrong 🙈

How is he going to learn to use steps if you don't let him? My son is nearly three and he holds onto the banister when we go down together.

@Toddlerhelpplease123 some of the things being talked about are because of a recent report that has come out because many parents are not helping their children achieve the development points they should be at when they start school, one of which was not being able to manage stairs.

On the face of reading your initial posts it is possible to conclude that you are not changing some of your behaviour as your toddler develops (which is what is reflected on parenting behaviour in that report)

and the stairs? he will work out a way to get up and down, he will never learn if you keep babying him

Does your DH expect a drink in bed?

I’m struggling to get my head around why you would go downstairs and bring drinks back up every morning.

I would understand it maybe once in a blue moon if you’re tired and want to stay in bed for a bit longer but doing it everyday seems more faff than it’s worth.

Go downstairs in your PJs and get his milk/have breakfast whilst down there.

It sounds to me that your current routine simply isn't working for you - and you need to change it. People have given ideas/suggestions, but only you will know what will work best! For example, my 3.5 DD isn't very hungry in the morning and is a complete dawdler, so we do brushing teeth, toilet and getting dressed etc. as soon as she wakes up and then she doesn't need to go upstairs again in the morning. Maybe the screaming is because the toddler know it gets results and perhaps there might be morning panic that they're picking up on the: who is going to get them the drink? It sounds unnecessarily stressful and so you need to make some tweaks to how you start your mornings to cut the screaming habit out!

DS did a couple of tantrums around this age he was removed immediately and put in his bedroom and ignored. it didn’t last long, he is in his early twenties now and is fine. We did tea in bed with toddlers not sure why people are calling them lazy drinks, it’s just a drink.

OP what do you mean by 2 percentile legs?
My response would be to distract , whether that's by pretending to see a lion in the garden, or doing something to make him laugh, or taking him downstairs where it's different.
Please come back tomorrow and tell us how it went, whatever you decide to do.

Could you leave a few toys, books for him to look at together with the milk?

This is a very odd dilemma.

The way we do it. 2 year old in bed, gets up and takes themself to the loo if they need a wee immediately. All go down in PJs, they can v confidently walk up and down and have been doing so for well over a year. They play while we get breakfast bits ready. Drink given with breakfast, unless they're thirsty and ask for one beforehand. Teeth and dressed (downstairs) after breakfast. They do their own teeth and dressing, with a bit of guidance. We then do a quicker second brush to make sure they've had a proper brush done!

It's good to foster some independence early, and they usually enjoy it too.

But if a child is developmentally ready before 3 years old but still stuck in a cot in a nappy that will impact on their learning. Seems things have changed in the decade and half since mine were little but I remember other mums couldn't wait to get their kids out of nappies.

hes probably frustrated waiting on you to start the day. Let him get up and go downstairs and have a proper breakfast not a drink of milk.

That's completely incorrect. There's no evidence that learning earlier leads to better outcomes, and children taught before they are ready is actually detrimental to their progress, hence why in a lot of countries they start learning at age 7.

I was assessed at 6 and found to have a reading age of 17. I didn't learn to read until I started school.

This post is so bizarre, if my child was regularly screaming as you have described I would be out of bed in a flash and take him downstairs to resolve the issue.
Unless I have missed something what time does your child actual wake, are you using this drinks method upstairs to have a lie in yourselves?

A 3 year old in a cot?? That’s mad. My DS was out of a cot at 18 months.. DD never slept in one but that’s another story.

Your child is growing up, he’s a little boy now not a baby. Just put a baby gate at the top of the stairs and give him some independence.

I haven't rtft, but have you tried, in a calm moment, after he's had his milk, asking him about what's wrong in the mornings? A 3 year old should be able to have a conversation about it, I would think.

For what it's worth, 3 was the only age at which any of mine had any tantrums. It was a stage that passed quickly.

And, yeah, I'm with the posters who say just whisk him downstairs asap, no faffing around with teeth brushing and drinks. You can do that after.

It’s still beneficial to keep them in a cot so long as they are safe sleeping there up until 3. Since the majority of children aren’t dry at night til 3-5, that a smaller proportion ‘might’ be ready earlier isn’t compelling enough to remove the cot with no evidence of this.

My DS was dry at night from 2, he was in a cot til 3. He simply woke up, I went to get him and then he’d go use the potty. At 2, while he as an individual kid was dry at night, he didn’t have the skills to potty by himself in the middle of the night. Another kid might be climbing out their cot and completely able to toilet alone in the pitch dark.

Posters railing against OP about cot sleeping and having none of this information is completely pointless and getting insulting at this point.

I confess I'm surprised at an almost 3yo being happy sleeping in a cot.

It means his leg length is in the 2nd percentile – 98% of children his age have longer legs than he does. He’s very short. My DD was 4th percentile and couldn’t reach the hand rail until she was around 4.

Absolutely not railing, just surprised. I don't find the research particularly convincing though maybe that is the lack of depth in the Mirror's reporting.

My twins were potty trained at 2. One was dry at night at 2, the other 4. Both slept in a cot til 3. Potty training is neither here nor there.

This thread is baffling.

You have very high expectations of your mornings if you're expecting to both lay around in bed till 8.30am drinking hot cups of drinks, with children as young as yours.

Take the 3 year old downstairs in your PJs and yes, of course you'll have to supervise him up and down the stairs if he struggles with them!

You said you're being accused of babying your child and that you actually have high expectations of him. It sounds like your expectations are just wildly out generally.

If he is anything like ds when he was a toddler they are up and raring to go from the minute they wake.

He doesn't want to lounge about in bed chatting and discussing how his sleep was he wants food and he wants to be stimulated, downstairs helping get his breakfast ready and starting his day with a bang.

I think the lazy mornings and drinks in bed era has come to an end! Don't worry, you'll get them back when they hit their teens and it takes a crowbar to get them out of bed at all! 😉

17? 😂 was that a typo or do you really mean 17? That’s so specific 😂

Not you railing – but many, many others.

Here’s the full study.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1389945718305707