Feel like I'm fucking up my 3 year old already

[bicarbonateofsoda]

He's lovely, articulate, and we escaped the terrible twos. But now he's cheeky, stubborn and just refuses to do what he's told until we have a big row about it. He also wakes every night and comes into our bed, and sometimes refuses to go to sleep there and we end up having big nighttime rows.

I try to give warnings eg count to three or X consequence will happen (consequences usually are threats like "or we won't go to the park", "or I'll throw your digger in the bin"). So rarely followed through.

Refuses to put pants on after going to toilet - says he can't which is nonsense, he can dress himself perfectly well. Ends up in big shouting rows until he does it, threats of going back to nappies etc. When I really lose my rag he puts them on quickly.

I make him feel guilty eg "you've woken up mummy and daddy and your sister and now we're all sad because of you", and I hate myself for it but it just comes out. It doesn't even work.

I shout all the time and lose my temper. I try to be clear but he just doesn't care. Then ages later he says something which makes me think my words have sunk in hurt him and I feel terrible - but if he hasn't responded to what he's been told it seems like he doesn't care so I escalate to these threats etc as they, at the time, are seemingly ineffectual.

I got "How to Talk ..." but can't seem to relate it to real life/to a child of his age. Just feel lost, like I'm emotionally screwing him up, like the boundaries are blurry for him and I can't control myself enough or think clearly enough to make them clearer for him. He's not even that bad, he's just 3, and wilful, and it doesn't matter how furious I get he doesn't care/listen, nothing I say makes him listen to me. I think it'll get worse :(

I have done the sticker chart in the past but think he was just a bit too young. Might try again, or the marble thing

I can so relate to this post, we have a 9m old and a 3.6 y.o. and for a while I thought I was permanently screwing her up. I found the HTT book useful in part, but mainly just remembering that she's only been on this earth for 3 years so her experience of life is soooo limited. It is starting to get a bit easier, though it does all sound very familiar, the not listening, refusing to do things that she's quite capable of doing, eating a meal, me screaming and behaving quite childishly...

At least everyone posting on here is aware that we need help to change. Hopefully we'll all learn to be great parents and our 3 year olds will forget just how bad we were :)

Just a very little thing tio add - pick your battles, you can't fight (and win) them all.

My mum says to me 'let her win some of the time'. This goes completely against nature but she says they are just trying to exert a bit of control over their lives.

If you are going to 'let them win one' by going back on you word just offer an explanation e.g. I said no but actually since you did xyz you can have whatever...

My problem is I have such low patience & irrational crying sends me into a fury. E.g last night dd had tantrum because dh bought her bottle in when apparently she wanted to get it herself. Also are we the only ones to have had tantrums over 'i want to go left, I don't want to go right'?

on the way back from work I sometimes have to take a longer route (which we take when the traffic is bad) because of my little back seat driver

Okay the best advice, which I'm not always good at following is: that it takes two to argue. You as the adult have to decide you will not argue, so you say what you want and then leave it. Don't argue.
But this also has to be practised with the endless weighing of what you really want. Which is more important; them putting their own shoes on or getting their shoes on? If its the first then you tell them and leave them to it (with help if it really is developmentally hard for them), but if its the second it may be you who needs to do it so you can leave the house.

Try a behaviour chart to show you that he is not naughty all the time (you have to give him 10 stickers for good behaviour everyday). We have used visual routines for bedtime, sticker charts and discussion about what is wrong with bed time to overcome bedtime issues. Long stories and tickle times in bed have helped there too.
But one DD learnt to be able to creep into our bed without waking us, and often managed to stay. She has now out grown wanting to be in our bed.

They really won't be doing these things when they are 18.

Yeah, I agree. Children are genrally born ok ... it's the adults who fuck them up !

Thanks all so much.

Your wise words probably saved his bacon last night - at 2am he was still refusing to sleep, eventually claiming hunger. I tried the oatcake test (nobody would eat a dry oatcake unless they were really hungry, right?) and he said he wanted it, so I went and got a couple with a wee bit of cheese. I have seriously never seen anyone eat something so slowly and laboriously in my life. After ten minutes and two mouthfuls he said he'd had enough and DP and I were pretty much having to restrain one another!

His sister is very new still, and on the surface he's fab with her - very affectionate and fond and looking forward to when she's big enough to share his room. But the associated disruption of relatives constantly visiting/staying, the vast quantities of sweeties people have insisted on giving him and the extra attention of having his GM indulging his every whim looking after him for a few weeks (which involved a few episodes of us being undermined) has probably been harder for him to deal with.

I'm going to try a new regime of rising above it and rewarding him with more positive attention for basic things. I have also gone back to putting his undies on for him in the hope he gets bored of it. And next week when he's back at nursery we'll get some routine back again, which will help me even if it doesn't help him.

Thank you again, I still feel guilty but less alone with it, which helps :)

Bumperlicious, you are definitely not the only one to have suffered a tantrum over which direction the car is going.

I couldn't believe it when ds first kicked off because I didn't turn left. He was nearly 3 at the time. He raged for 30 minutes. The entire journey. Every single time for about a year.

It takes two to argue. I'll definitely remember that.

Ah, he has a new baby sister? Then please cut him some slack. His world has turned upside down!I found there was an initial honeymoon period of about 2 weeks during which the baby was a wonderful novelty, then from about 2-3weeks to about 10-11 weeks there was a lot of insecure and attention-seeking behaviour including some regression (ie 'I can't put on my own pants') and wanting to be where the baby is - in your room/bed, and wanting to be cared for/paid attention to, and if that means being shouted at, so be it. It's easy when you are tired to think 'omg, this is what my son is like' but it isn't, it's a phase. It is very hard when you are tired to enlist your sense of humour and be patient and pick your battles, but I think it is really is the only solution. If he says, 'you don't tell me' you can say, 'ooooooh yes I do!' in a funny voice, then tackle him on the sofa and tickle him, or swoop on him and throw him over your shoulder. Put his pants on if he won't do it. He fundamentally wants to make sure his world hasn't gone totally out of his control and that he is still your baby, and really, a three year old is WEENY. A littl baby. I look at pictures of my children when they were three anc could cry they are so small and sweet and helpless!

My dd is nearly 3, ds is 12weeks, I too have lied in bed feeling awful because all I can remember doing all day is having a go at dd. She was such a sunny happy kid at 2, now at nearly 3 she is starting to lose confidence, get more upset at things... I don't know if this is just growing up or if we have caused this change in character - either way it makes me soo sad when she tells me she isn't good at x, can't do y.......

Everything takes so long, she refuses to nap and then is so naughty, she doesn't listen. When we are both tired its soo hard. She is just so much more withdrawn. Not all the time, but more often. She hates that ds is in our room and she is in her own room. She is at nursery mon and tues, with granny on wed, I dread thursdays, which is just awful because she is a lovely kid, I just feel like I'm failing her.

She will get better. There comes a point when they cannot remember a time before the 'new' baby and they calm down. Try and have fun, and cut back on the word 'no'.

Well my story might make some of you realise that perhaps shouting at them now & again really isn't so bad after all...at least that how its seeming to me these days

we've always been pretty strict with DD, but not sure whether its been down to being older parents, so perhaps more in control of ourselves, or r the fact that DH is a cop out merchant & leaves the discipline to me & my having health problems means I don't have the energy to waste on shouting, & at the time DD was 2/3 I often barely had a voice anyway

Whatever the reason, I can honestly say, I NEVER lost it with her, NEVER shouted etc etc, did pick my battles though & was unmoveable on the important stuff & stuck to my guns on threatened punishments

Now DD is 8 & over the last few years I've realized that she can just go completely to pieces if people shout around her, my Dad shouted at her once a few months ago, not badly so, but my God you would think he'd just turned into a mass murderer & threatened to kill her...complete melt down......seen the same when my Brother has done it, & if DH & I ever shout at each other...........doesn't even have to be a row....which again we've always been good at keeping away from her

So in short, having supposedly done all the right things as far as not exposing her to shouting & anger etc, now realsise as a result, she seems not very well equipped at all to dealing with it when people do

so for all the OPPOSITE reasons you describe, I wonder if we too haven't one her any favours in how to handle life

I love this thread!

Camdancer Is the playful parenting book any good? Not in college, uni or local library and need to justify spending more money on amazon. My DS doenst talk to me so it may help.

I'm only half way through but it seems to be really good. There are questions I have but hopefully they will be answered in the rest of the book. It feels like HTT but without as much actual talking, so I think is going to be more useful for my 3yo DS. The guy who wrote it is a play therapist so obviously will say that play cures everything but if it helps me have more fun with my kids then it can't be that bad.

camdancer- Im not a natural player with my DS. I find it boring Do you think the book will tackle that?

I don't know. The writer is a very charismatic guy who seems to find it easy to play although he does say it is hard and he used to be rubbish at it. I think because you have to try to see play through the child's eye that might help make it more interesting - and also an intellectual challenge for you to work out what it all means. Give me a couple of weeks and maybe I'll have finished it and could tell you definitively!

I do understand what you mean. I can only do a couple of minutes of shooting and baddies before I give up.

My son is 3.10 and we have an 11mth old ds2. This thread is great because so many of us are having exactly the same problems and it just shows that it is normal and we are not alone...phew!
I think my ds1 has just had a growth spurt too which may account for the excessive tiredness, irritability and meltdowns we've been seeing recently. He's still not his baby brother's biggest fan, nearly a year on and hates sharing anything with him.
I'm going to try to spend a lot more one to one time with my 3yr old and see if that helps and also star charts/marble jars.
Thanks for starting this thread, I've found it a real help :)

I'm reading Playful Parenting aswell. I think it's worth it, although am only on chapter 2. I thought I was going to hate it but I don't. It's quite useful so far.

It's really reassuring to hear of so many other people going through the same thing (and also hearing of those who've come through the other side!).

DS's behaviour hasn't been great for months now, so much of this preceded his new sister. DP and I have been talking about it and we both recognise that we need to give him some leeway. We've started giving him Minadex as well because he seems really tired - when he's tired he gets hyper, doesn't listen, and is very incoordinated and clumsy so he then crashes around and gets yelled at for that.

He's embracing stickers and a chart, despite being totally disinterested last time we tried it - I'm using them partly as a spontaneous reward and partly as an incentive. I can see that he is trying to earn them which is nice.

Having just typed all that while he was playing nicely, I looked over to see him being bad to the dog so have just removed one from his chart. Not sure if you're meant to do that, but annoying animals is a cardinal non-negotiable sin in our house so it was that or shriek at him

Thank God (and bicarb) for this thread. I somehow feel much better about my poor little DD1 who is 3.2. I also feel better equipped to deal with her tantrums.

Although DD2 is now 7 months old, we have had a spate of visitors recently, culminating in an aunt & granny looking after both of them for an afternoon a couple of days ago and DD1 getting all the chocolate biscuits, sweets, crisps and other crap she demanded Leaving me looking like a Very Bad Mummy in her eyes for saying no when she kept demanding them from me on our return.

Reward charts, stickers and a convenient pillow are now going to be at hand throughout the day

I am almost at the other end of this phase as DD1 turns 4 in a couple of months and DD2 is now 2. It is always wonderful to read these threads as you do feel like you are doing horrible damage.
Wonderstuff I can completely relate to the worry of DD becoming more introspective. My DD2 was very much the same ... a very sunny 2 year old and then during the 3s it has been a constant, I can't do this that or the other and bursts into tears over the smallest of things ... we also get driving instruction and low and betide if her bottle drips (note 'bottle' not cup as she wanted the same as DD2 and it was a battle couldn't face not worth fighting) or any other minor issue occurs to her specific requirements ie how you dress her baby exactly 'No not like that Mummy'. It can drive you to distraction but it does look like we are coming out the other end (just before DD2 heads straight back there) and she is much more confident now, shinier, happier and just lovely to spend time with. I think it is very much the age. I love Toddler Tamer as well, as much because it just says that all this behaviour is normal and not an indication of what they will be like in the future (I have worried about having a moany, whinging, hypochondriac, dictator for life!)

I think we have to give ourselves a break. There is no such thing as perfect parenting - we just muddle along the best we can, give them as many cuddles and love as possible, say sorry when we lose our rag and enjoy the lovely parts of them being 3 - all that love and wonder and cuddles.