Toddler is ruining our family and my marriage

[Stressedoutmum26]

Our first child was born three years ago after a rough pregnancy. He was the most content, happy baby, hit all his milestones and settled into nursery with no issues. He slept brilliantly too – in his own bed from 8pm–6am from just before he turned two. Bedtime was a kiss, a story and “night night mummy”.
We decided to have another baby. I got pregnant in May and our second was born in January. Since around his second birthday our eldest has slowly become harder and now we are at breaking point. He’s almost three and I have a six-week-old who I’m exclusively breastfeeding.
From about 4.30am until 10pm he’s an absolute nightmare. He trashes rooms, destroys toys, constantly says no, hits, bites, kicks, throws things, spits and pulls my hair – even when the baby isn’t there. Bedtime has become three hours of musical beds between me upstairs and Daddy downstairs.
We’ve tried one-to-one time, treats, taking things away, different routines – nothing is working. We’re exhausted and constantly snapping at each other. We don’t even get five minutes at the end of the day because he’s climbing furniture or trying to hit the baby. I don't want to be around him.
I honestly feel like I’m drowning. I’m writing this while he’s trashing the living room and the baby has just been sick all over me while I’m trying to feed him.
I don’t know what to do anymore. Please don’t just say “it gets easier”. I really need help now.

You are only 6 weeks in though with DC2. It would be absolutely fine to enlist more help at this stage so he feels the love and attention (albeit from GPs) and you have time to bf and bond with new baby. Get some more help for next 6 weeks minimum if you can.

What days does he go to nursery? Is he sleeping too much during the day, so he's then not tired come the evening. If he's 3 now l, he only needs 10-13 hours sleep... Is he having a long nap and therefore not tired enough to go to bed at 7... hence the staying awake until 10pm? It's unusual for 3 year olds to still nap a lot.

How was your pregnancy?

It sounds like he has a lot of energy to burn, and if you weren't able to get out and about in the fresh air with him, that could really affect his mood and sleep.

Off all the toddlers I know, the ones spending the most time outside are the calmest and best behaved otherwise. The ones that don't are progressively trickier. Whenever my son has gone through a clingy phase, getting him outside suddenly transforms him into someone who wants to be on the far side of the moon to me!

Can you take him out of nursery and spend some time together to try and re-bond? He probably doesn’t understand why he’s shipped off to childcare while mummy is at home with baby.

He is communicating his big feelings to you. My oldest was 2 years 5 months when her brother was born, she became very territorial over her grandparents etc but she settled down and is a fab big sister.

I do think 3 (threenagers!) is a really hard age without the sibling. They want, what they want on their own timescales... I have a 3 year old now and , he can be difficult, can act out on public etc. I find he likes to push me to breaking point and then tell me I'm his best friend in the whole world to bring me back in line 😂

My super chilled 2 year old turned into a bed time nightmare when we had her sister, we were really careful to involve her in the same bedtime routine, she helped us out baby into the crib, then we popped her into her bed (not helped by the fact she'd learnt how to escape her cot 2 weeks earlier so we'd had to move her to a bed and we'd put a stair gate at her door to stop her wandering, she absolutely SCREAMED the place down like she was being murdered and tried to rip the stair gate off! All we could do was be consistent, her little world had been rocked! We offered reassurance but kept her in her room and stuck like glue to routine until all was settled again, rough times! On repeat..... this too shall pass.....

Make him feel important as the Big Brother who has to help with the Baby as the Baby isn’t a big boy like he is . Maybe express your milk into a bottle and get him ( under supervision) to feed the baby , rub baby’s back to wind them , also get him to help with bath time and nappy changes , putting on cream and powder . Make him feel super important. This worked for us .

Can you afford some help? Thinking a very good child psychologist who can support you with strategies to help him through this transition? There are techniques but you need to learn them and you are not in the right state of mind to read them in a book.. 5-6 hours with a person who is specialised in children behaviour should really help

I had this with my nearly 3 year old when my youngest was weeks old. I didn’t know how to manage her. I was at breaking point. The HV called round for a routine baby check and I told her everything. She said something that made me feel like the worst mum in the world at the time. My toddler was the type that just needed more attention. She was right. I focused a lot more on her and noticed such a change in her behaviour. Lots more affection. It’s very difficult to put baby down and solely focus on the toddler but I did. I snapped less. Tried to be more understanding and it worked. She is still the neediest, most highly strung out of my 3 and I can tell when I need to focus more on her individually when her behaviour starts to worsen. Try it for a few days and see how you go. I still remember the tears and the resentment at the HV suggesting I just wasn’t giving her the attention she needed but she wasn’t wrong. Motherhood is so difficult.

@Stressedoutmum26 Have you asked him how he feels / if anything is upsetting him or (when he's lashing out) asked him why? Can he tell you - colour monster stress / upset vibes? You're doing great, this is hard and not your fault and i'm sorry you're struggling.

Completely normal and yes it will quickly get better. Loads of really good advice here. What I did was a. Tried to stick to our routine as much as feasibly possible, my dd wasn’t in nursery yet so that meant playgroups, play dates and the park etc. b. Made sure she got as much exercise as beforehand, being a lazy creature she wanted to go in the pram whereas prior she wanted to walk (had no issue with her riding but needed to ensure she still burned off enough energy) c. Stick to your house rules whatever they are, letting things slip will make a rod for your back later. And d. Which some people won’t agree with, don’t forget to say no, it’s fine, and be clear, just like with c. you will regret it later, they are fine with being given boundaries that are fair

He does sound quite tired actually if he's getting up at 4.30. If you change his routine, you will need to try for at least 2 weeks every single day to see if it works (sorry!)
I would start with getting up in the morning - does he get up early and shout/come in to you/demand dancing girls? Find a way so he stays in his room, doesn't shout, and it's totally boring. Get a Gro clock (maybe these are no longer in vogue!) or similar. Start with it set for 5am, explain what it means, and if he gets up before that, take him back with no talking or "sleep time", or just ignore (if he wakes the baby, then the baby gets to come in bed with you, but not him!). Advance 15 minutes a day and praise for staying in the room even if he was shouting. Reward with attention and something he wants (even Cbeebies) when the clock says daytime.
I think the idea of saying how boring babies are/insulting the baby is a really good one. He gets to watch Cbeebies/eat weetabix/play on the swings and the baby doesn't.
If he's still napping at nursery and this seems consistent, I would try for a nap at home (even if it's in the car after an outing). Again, if he's tired, he will be in a bad mood!
I'm not clear what the issues are at bedtime, but there's usually quite a lot of good advice on here about that.
Routine is essential and as I say it will take at least a couple of weeks of the same thing each day at home (breakfast, activity, out of the house activity, lunch, nap, activity, dinner, bath, bed). Lots of praise for doing all of them nicely, be specific "oh, you got your wellies on so well! oh look how well you did on the swing! oh I can see how much effort you put into the painting!". We also started using "can you try that again nicely" at around this age,
My DCs have a similar gap and DS was already quite "lively" at this age but when I was feeding DD (FF, so DH could do it but was also out at times) I seem to remember playing a lot of dancing games/musical bumps/musical statues so I could put on music while he wore off some energy and got my attention. I used a sling a lot as well for carrying DD, which might (I imagine!) make it less obvious she was "in his face".

I think this is pretty telling. He’s trying to get your attention and his age is preventing him from understanding the right and wrong way of going about it. All attention is good to a toddler.

I have a 5 year old and he was like this at this age - especially not going to bed. So I do think a lot of this is normal behaviour for a 3 year old mixed in with feelings of jealousy. That being said he was never violent.

Is it only to you he is being aggressive? If so, you need to get your husband to take the baby as much as possible so you can give your full attention to your oldest, even 10 minutes without distraction will keep them happy.

I have a baby too and one thing that my son loves is when I ‘tell the baby off’. As a example, if my son is trying to talk to me and the baby is chatting over him, I will say ‘excuse me baby, I’m trying to have a conversation with your brother, please stop being so rude and interrupting’. Makes absolutely no difference to the way baby acts, but 5 year old loves it and giggles away and joins in. I’m sure at times you have told your toddler to be quiet because of the baby, so this is a way for them to ‘get their own back’ in a nice way and it makes them feel like part of a team with you.

It all sounds normal enough to me. All of my children were completely different but went through stages of this. You just have to survive it. Don’t worry about the ‘bond’ you are his mother and love him, he will know this when he is older.

Just do what you need to do to live through it.

I recently had my second child too, my first is 4 and has struggled with the arrival of her brother. It has been clear she has questioned our love for her, her place in the family, what the future is going to be like for her and much more. It has completely unsettled her whole understanding of us as a family which makes her feel unsafe. I think this is a pretty standard response to a new baby coming into the family. They are testing, testing , testing so they can figure this new life they have out.

I have empathy OP. I am 13 weeks in now and things are so so much better. DD adores her baby brother and she is settling into life as a big sister. My only advice is to keep things as predictable as possible for your DC, narrate what you are doing with baby so your DC can hear what you are doing and when you will be free for DC, make time each day for DC one to one - Even if it's only 10 mins for a story before bed. Validate how your firstborn is probably feeling e.g. "I know it's hard mummy can't always do bedtime, I love doing bedtime . It is daddy's turn tonight." I found it useful to adopt a 'reward good behaviour, ignore bad' approach (obviously not ignoring dangerous or harmful behaviour but much of my DD's was boundary testing and trying to attract attention). It saved my sanity in the early weeks. Keep showing your DC how much you love them and want to spend time with them and they will come around slowly but surely.

Sorry to hear you’re feeling like this. I don’t have any pearls of wisdom, but having a baby and a toddler can be very very hard.

Haven’t read everything - that sounds incredibly tough OP. I’m suprised so many are saying that this is ‘normal behaviour’. I honestly don’t think it is. I’ve got two and seen another 5/6 friends have a second and none of their firsts have trashed rooms and toys continuously. I’m not saying this to say that you need to leap to huge conclusions or do something drastic, more in support of the fact that this feels really awful and ‘off’ for you. I wonder if there is something else going on - possibly neuro divergence. If he’s holding everything together outside of home (nursery / grandparents), maybe this is his outlet - exacerbated by a new baby. Tough for him, but hugely tough for you.

These comparisons are ridiculous and don’t help when someone is already struggling. I don’t know who decided this but it’s complete nonsense.

It is fine to say that it’s a big change for a child and disruptive but they do get over it and accept their sibling. I don’t think my ds even remembers a time when he didn’t have a little sister. Would you ever just accept another woman in your home? And how may threesomes do you know compared to how many children have siblings?

I really wish that nonsense comparison would go!

I'm afraid I have to echo other posters who've mentioned how negative your language about your toddler is. I have an 18m old and she's in a really difficult phase, but it's only temporary. Saying your eldest is "ruining" things is quite extreme - he's not purposefully out to get you / your husband / the baby. It sounds like he's just very upset and confused. Also I think you said somewhere about him ruining days out... I figure that later I can do days out of thay are more what I want to do primarily, but for now, making it what my children will enjoy doing means a happier day for everyone.

That title is absolutely dreadful. He IS your family. He needs support. His little world has been turned upside down. Are you paying him enough attention?

We read a book with our little one called ‘too small for honey cake’. It’s about a small fox with big feelings when dad gets interrupted by baby. It really helped out DS1 articulate what was going on for him. He loved that the baby fox couldn’t have cake.

you need to work through his feelings with him. He’s so little op! You need to reset your expectations.

which of the many strategies you’ve been offered do you think might work for you?

I haven't read all of the replied but I have two words: Janet Lansbury.

Please don’t use words like he spoils thar too and you don’t want to be round him. Could you have post natal depression?

he’s tiny. He doesn’t know what’s happening, all he knows is his mother isn’t giving him the same attention, so he’s trying to get it. It isn’t on purpose, he can’t regulate his emotions. He doesn’t understand.

We all get frustrated and I’ve definitely vented on here and probably sounded more negative than I actually am.

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