I know this may not actually sound that bad to many people, but I'm at the end of my tether... I have a 2 1/2 yo DS and a 9 week old DD. For the past couple of months (before the arrival of DD), DS has been more and more tantrummy. Now, whenever I ask him to do something (naptime, nappy change, go out of the house somewhere, come home from somewhere, come in from playing outside, bathtime/bedtime...) he just goes epicly crazy. He's recently started headbutting the floor (though does now at least realise that this makes his head hurt...). I can get through most of the tantrums by ignoring him and we generally get to the end result.
However, the ones that I really struggle with are the nappy changes and coming home from his childcare - when what he wants to do is play and I want him to come home. If I ignore him, he just continues to play.
Last year he had a really bad case of balanitis and was hospitalised for the weekend with the "worst case the hospital had ever seen", so I'm anal about changing his dirty nappies immediately.
Today, to make him leave his childminders, I had to physically grab him and carry him down the drive. She lives on a majorly busy road and he was kicking and screaming by the side of the road for ages until I could get him in the car (manhandled). He was then in the car (ignored) for a good 10 minutes before he would get in his car seat. My father-in-law was killed in a hit and run when the car he was getting out of was hit on a busy road so every second we are parked outside her house, my heart is in my mouth.
The childminder now wants to have a meeting with me about DS's behaviour. He doesn't attack other children (thank goodness) but I feel like a total failure as a parent and don't know how to get him to leave places when he's having fun. I walked off earlier and he just yelled "I'm not coming home mummy, I'm staying to play!"
DH works late and doesn't often see the children in the evening. When I talk to him about this, his response is "DS doesn't have tantrums like that for me" which makes me feel even more inadequate.
I'm trying to give him positive attention and the childminder agrees that she doesn't think its jealousy over DD but I'm at a loss. I don't want my child to grow up to be a s* but I don't know what I can do about this.
Does anyone have any suggestions? Please? We have worked together to make sure he still has a sleep in the day, and he eats like a horse, plus gets a snack on the way home so it's not generally hunger either...