DD1 (3.7) moans and cries all the time - please tell me this is just a phase

[sanssucre]

'All the time' is only a very slight exaggeration, we have hours of crying/nagging/whining for things every day, it is driving us all mad. Really hard to have fun as a family when whatever you do one DC is miserable the whole time.

If she trips and gets the tiniest scratch her knee she will wail for hours, and then limp around for a few days. I find it so hard to be patient with the endless whinging 'my leg hurts', 'I'm tired', 'I'm hungry', 'I'm thirsty' (I should add these last too are often right after a meal/snack & drink, I promise I'm not depriving her of food and drink!) It's often really hard to get anything done at home because she'll cling to my leg every five minutes saying, in whiney tones, 'I need a drink/cuddle/snack etc' when I'm trying to cook dinner for example.

I know it sounds very old-school and the sort of thing I never thought I'd find myself saying but I'm desperate for her to toughen up a bit. I feel like I've tried everything, have tried being loving and giving her endless cuddles, I've tried getting tough and saying I want her to stay in her room/sit on the stair until she's finished moaning, I've got cross with her on countless occasions (not proud of doing but I after a whole day of it my patience just runs out).

I'm really at my wits end. DD2 is just so much easier to be around at the moment and I'm worried that DD1 will pick up on how I feel about it and that will make her feel resentful/make the situation worth etc.

Please, please tell me that your DC have been through this and that either you did something that successfully stopped it or they grew out of it (preferably by the age of four!).

I really understand your frustration as I have a low tolerance of whining. We ban it in our house, DD understands when we talk about using the right voice to ask for things etc.

But that said, one of my cousins has a boy who makes a huge deal out of any injury, he is 7 and far less 'brave' than our DD who is 4. I think that is just the character of it all.

Can you sit down and talk to her about her behaviour? She's old enough now to understand about 'over reaction' and better ways to communicate. If she doesn't understand show her the difference in her voice and ask her to ask for the drink again but with a 'normal voice'. I'd ignore the limping etc. and go and do something she really wants to do (like go to the park) but then say 'oh well you'd better just sit on the grass while we all have fun if you're too injured. Sounds mean but she might start to feel a bit left out!

I took the mickey out of Ds2 when he did this. I used to say (in a VERY loud and whiny voice) "I caaaannn't heeeeear yoooouuuu, yoooouuurrr not whhhhhhinnnny enough, you neeeed to whhhhiiiiinnnnne harder"

he laughed, he stopped.

Ha! Nice strategy colditz, will def try that.

Senoritaviva, hearing about your cousin's whiney 7yo fills me with dread that we are stuck with this for many years to come. I have sat her down and talked it through many times but it doesn't seem to make any difference she stops for long enough to get her drink/snack and then it all starts again. Tantrums, naughtiness I can deal with but this defeats me...

Bumping once more to see if anyone else has been through this and can reassure me that it is just a phase or has found a solution that worked? (Going to give the Colditz ploy a go today but other suggestions also much appreciated.)