argh threenagers - help!!!

[GirlWithTheMouseyHair]

I have been blessedly lucky so far with DS, after a horrendous beginning of colic and me not dealing well with motherhood, he's been pretty easy since 6months, apart from the very occasional (once every 10-12months) few days of clearly being out of sorts and naughty. So now the threenager stage has well and truly hit I just don't know how to cope with it and need some help/strategies

Every day we get at least one tantrum - of the sort where he gets so worked up he is screaming and hitting himself and clearly scaring himself. I think I know how to deal with these (it's almost easy because I can see how out of control he has got himself and I can help him calm down), but he builds into these via various disobediences and defiances. He also will suddenly meltdown out of nowhere - case in point, he and DH were on their bikes this morning before leaving for nursery

DH: Ok, 5mins now DS
DS: OK Daddy
(DS cycles up the driveway once)
DS: 5minutes are done, Daddy
DH: Oh, ok, do you want to cycle your bike into the garage?
DS: No, you do it, please Daddy
(DH pushes DS's bike in garage, DS hurles himself on the floor in a screaming fit of rage)

Argh, WTF? I mean obviously he has thought something but not said it out loud, but what do we do?

He's gone through a LOT of change in the last 6months - DD arriving, his first really aware Christmas, emigrating to California, moving three times in as many months, my parents coming out and then going again. He's coped with all this really well but now nothing major is going on he is just flipping out.

I'm exhausted because DD is up feeding like a monster all night long so I know I'm not dealing very well with DS' behaviour at all. Really need some strategies in place because I can't see the wood for the trees and I hate myelf for getting angry at him and shouting, I hate the kind of mother I'm being to him at the moment.

Ah the terrible threes- they really were the worst.

Mine are now teen/pre-teen respectively and honestly, it's a walk in the park compared the the T.Th's.

All I can offer is that it's probably quite difficult for him too; it is one of those awkward in-between ages where you don't really know whether you're a baby or not, you can do things but not consistently, you want to do more than you can but then suddenly you want to be a baby and be protected again. You expect to be able to communicate verbally and then suddenly you can't say what you want.

The pre-teen stage is another of those ages, but at least you can slip them the bus money and send them out of the house when it gets too much.

It will pass. Have a

Come to think of it, I spent an awful lot of time at that stage in the kitchen brewing myself cuppas that I didn't actually want, just because I had to take myself away from the scene of Endless Frustration. I used to sing a lot too, to drown out my inner screaming.

No advice here as I am struggling with my 3.5 DD too. I spend quite a lot of time hiding round the corner of the kitchen eating chocolate. No help I know!

It sounds like perhaps he's expressing the feelings about all the big changes that didn't come out at the time.

(I realise that doesn't make the tantrums easier).

Good to hear others are suffering!!

Ok then, patience patience patience!!

Oh dear - this is scary! I thought it was terrible twos you hard to worry about?!

DD has already started getting about stroppy in the past couple of weeks... I had assumed she was just under the weather.

There are no baby siblings on the horizon, but we are 2 weeks away from our own move to california, so I hope this isn't the start of her threenager stage