Does anyone else struggle a bit with a strong willed 2nd child after a much easier 1st?

[YunoYurbubson]

I'm not saying that my eldest is an angel, but I feel that I have a good handle on her. I understand her and am pretty confident that I get things right with her. When to spoil her, when to put my foot down, when to chat about things, when to let things go. She is 4, and a cheerful, polite, confident child.

2yo ds is very different. I think I spoil him a bit, which doesn't help him to feel confident about boundaries. He has often been ill so there is always a reason to just let him get away with it this once...

And of course he doesn't have a younger sibling - whereas when dd was his age she had a 6 mth old baby brother and I expected behaviour from her that I wouldn't dream of asking from ds now. He is still very much my baby, and I wonder if this makes him clingy and anxious.

Also he is very defiant which is completely normal, but not something I am used to dealing with so I think I get it wrong. I give in. And sometimes I ask dd to give in to him too, which she does but it is SO WRONG OF ME to ask. It's just that she is easy going and will generally say yes, and the alternative is a full on projectile vomiting, puce coloured, head banging, biting, kicking, screaming tantrum from him for 40 minutes. How many of these am I supposed to put up with a day?

He has terrible eczema which affects his sleep. I think he and I have been over-tired for about 2 years now.

I just... I suppose sometimes I catch a glimpse of life outside this foggy mess of sleep deprivation and fury, and I wonder if I ought to be trying harder to put firm boundaries in place, insist he sleeps better, insist on better manners, tough out the tantrums, and have the same high expectations for my son as I do for my daughter.

He is so naughty. He throws things out of windows and smears food on the walls and scribbles on everything and wees anywhere and laughs if I catch him and helps himself from the fridge and rips up books and hits and kicks. I am a SAHM and I try and take issue with every misdemeanor but I can't spend all day long going "NO! NO! NO! NO!"

Maybe I am forgetting and she was just as bad at 2. But she wasn't. She just wouldn't have.

Is it me totally dropping the ball? Or is he just a billion times naughtier than she ever was?

God, who would live with a 2 yr old?

PS - he is also gorgeous and lovely and sweet and cuddly and funny and plump and scrumptious.

does it matter whether he is your first or second baby?

two babies, two different personalities (and boys are more naughty than girls ive been told)

can you afford a day at nursery just to give you a break? then maybe you can spend more quality time with your DS

agree with tostaky.

my ds2 is alot harder to appease than ds1 but i don't think it is a result of birth oredr i think tehy are just two completely different chidlren and would have been the same if tehy had been born teh other way round, with perhaps slight differences as a result of it.

also, i am a different person now to what i was 4 years ago. my life is different and i do things differently so that is bound to affect my parenting style.

I agree thaat its just different personalities rather than because he's the youngest.
Mine are the other way round. DS1 is a hundred times harder work than DS2! I cant believe how easy DS2 is some days but then I have the problem now of DS2 at the age of 2 copying the bad behaviour from his older brother thaat he never would have thought of by himself.
We just muddle through

"does it matter whether he is your first or second baby?"

Well, yes, sort of. If you've had an easy first one, you think it's the result of your superb parenting skills. Then you have a challenging second and you think "Sh*t! WTF am I doing wrong this time?!"

Later, of course, you realise that you weren't doing anything wrong and it was just a different child.

Also, to a certain extent a second gets less one-to-one attention and thus has to fight for it, they are exposed to things far earlier than a firstborn and also see their older sibling doing stuff which almost spurs them on. Not all second borns of course, it's just a general observation.

DD (a third born) is even worse than DS2 was. [sigh]

Only now do I realise how easy we had it with DD.
I always debated with colleagues the whole nature/nurture thing (before DC!) and I have completely changed my views. DS climbs, throws, flings himself about, loves toilet humour, is messy, gets dirty seemingly doing nothing, runs everywhere- you get the idea.
I do wonder if I allow him to get away with more because he is a boy though.
He is very affectionate, and knows how to placate me (mummy, you look beautiful today, shall I stroke your hair?)
DD is independent, calm, thoughtful, loving, and QUIET!
I have two very different children. Is it due to birth order, gender, or just different personalities?
I don't know, but they are ours and I treasure them

Huh, sounds like a DD/DS difference (and now everyone will jump on me and say there are no gender differences just different children). I had DS first and he was Hard Work. Now I have almsot 2 DD and although she has lots of difficult toddler behaviour she doesn't throw things, bite, rampage or jump on other children. As a result, I am finding no.2 a much easier ride.

"Huh, sounds like a DD/DS difference"

LOL. DD is by far the most challenging of my three.
Which is saying something given DS2s personality.

DS1 has only ever had to be told to do things once, DS2 doesn't do anything I ask him. DS2 is in many respects much harder work than DS1 and definitely 'naughtier'. However, as they get older I'm noticing there are things DS2 is better at than DS1. He's more easygoing for example. Totally different personalities.

My 2nd is definitely worse than my first. I've been so worried I spoke to my health visitor about it because I was convinced there could be a serious problem with her.

I'm glad to say she is now 2 1/2 and is getting better. But I don't think she will ever be as compliant as her big sister, it's just the way she is. The Hv said to me that whereas I wasn't a first time mum, I'd never had THIS child before, so it was just as much of a learning curve as the first time around. Starting nursery one day a week has helped enormously. And I really had to decide that I would not put up with it anymore and be mega strict and get my DH to be aswell. My DD spent a lot of time going to her bedroom for a few weeks, but it's only once or twice a day now. That sounds awful, but she is improving, honest!

Oh god yes.

We are currently having a pretty challenging time with DD3. She can be good as gold for nursery, friends, us some of the time but for the bulk of her time at home she is defiant, stroppy, stubborn and infuriating.

Her moods change like the wind and I feel that I am constantly negotiating with her, and telling her that her behaviour is unacceptable. She has very clear firm boundaries but is really pushing against them at the moment.

We NEVER had this with DDs 1 or 2 so it's very challenging, and really tiring. I'm hoping it's just her age (she's 4.2) and that it will pass.

Sympathies to you!

I have the same problem. Dd1 is totally easy going, well behaved and compliant. Dd2 is strong willed, disobedient and much harder work.

An example of the difference, dd1 would always stay by my side when we're out, dd2 will run into the road given half a chance, will not go
in the buggy or wear reins or hold my hand. (she'll just sit on the ground and refuse to move)

dd1 loves aarts and crafts, dd2 loves to climb on the dining table and jump off

they really are polar opposites, and I think if I'd had dd2 first, I'd have thought twice about having more dcs as she's so full on.

Not sure what my point is really, just wanted to let you know you're not the only one with dcs like this.

Not that I'd change either of them for the world, they're both amazing just in different ways.

They're 4 and 2 btw

My DD is DP's 3rd child and has come as a bit of a shock to him.
My DSC are great kids and were apparently both very easy going children who loved their Daddy.
DD is fine with me but can be horrid to him - she's very much a Mummys girl and is not as gentle and sociable as her siblings were.

This was my parents' experience with me. They really thougth they had it sussed with my big brother who was just normally naughty. And then I came along.... Apparently my mother went around muttering "I'll never rear that child, I'll never rear that child". But she did and I have grown up reasonably civilised.

I just needed to get to the stage where I could make most of the decisions about myself- I coped very badly with feeling run by other people. My big brother otoh, being a gentle and easily influenced child, coped far less well with the teenage stage, because some of the decisions he made were frankly not very good. His desire to please was very attractive in a 2yo who only had his parents to think about: the downside was that when he grew older he was equally desperate to please his mates and his girlfriends. In the long run, I think my parents have worried more about him than they have about me.