Is my 18 month olds behaviour normal, or am I seriously intolerant? Stressed!

[alabasterangel]

I've been walking around the house since DS got up this morning with my teeth clamped together so hard I've given myself a headache already. I have no idea if he is a normal, boisterous, lively little boy and I am very stressy and intolerant, or if he is genuinely a nightmare.

I have an older DD and she was utterly the other end of the scale. She concentrates, and has always been happy to apply herself to the toy/task/game in hand and gives feedback that she enjoys this. At his age she was selecting something to do and doing it, whereas DS is basically like a hurricane on overdrive. I could walk behind him all day and just pick up his chaos and destructions. He plays with nothing, toys are chucked and dismissed. He opened a little wooden tool bench on Christmas morning, selected the mallet, steamed across the room to his sister and bashed her in the face with it. He destroys everything in his wake. He doesn't sit still for a second. I've tried everything I can think of; rotating toy boxes, showing him endlessly how to play games, calming him down. He won't even sit in his highchair for a meal peacefully, he's screaming to get down and tears off to do something else 'naughty'. I've tried ignoring the naughty and praising the good, I've tried lots of dedicated time just to him (he has me all to himself 2 days a week when I'm not working and dd is at school). We can't go anywhere very easily as its just so un-enjoyable for dd and us. We went to a friends on Christmas Eve and I gave up after an hour; he launched himself into the Christmas tree, pulled the tablecloth off the table pulling crockery with it, etc. doesn't matter how fast I am to intercept, he's like lightning. It takes two of us to keep him out of trouble and then poor dd gets barely any attention and I don't get to have an adult conversation with anyone.

I've tried to discipline him by coming down to his level and firmly saying 'NO' but he just laughs like a drain and runs off to the next naughtiness. He's always been very 'lively', a dreadful sleeper (although now, finally, he does sleep through probably 50% of the time) and energetic, but he's ramping up to new heights now. He also is yet to speak anything, which I am wondering adds to any frustration. He understands me perfectly (will respond to some commands, when he chooses to do so, such as 'pass me teddy, go and get a story') etc, but says barely anything.

Seriously, if I'd have had him first I wouldn't have had another; I'm so exhausted and stressed with it. He is so different from DD. yesterday we had a discussion where sadly we agreed that the previous idea to go abroad for a family beachy type holiday this summer will have to be shelved as it wouldn't be any fun to try and contain him even briefly on a beach or in restaurants at night. We went abroad with dd at 20 months old and it was a relaxing, lovely holiday. We also agreed we were not looking forward to a family party on Sunday where he will run riot amongst 50 people and I will come away totally stressed out.

So really I just want to know if he is just a normal toddler and I'm an intolerant mum? Anyone got any ideas as to how I might be able to curb his behaviour a bit? I feel awful for being so stressed by him.

I love this thread too!

I have a 10 month old DS (and a 3.5 year old DD who is far from quiet but nowhere near as physical as DS seems to be turning out).

Already he is an utter whirlwind of energy and destruction (and he's not even walking yet). I spend every minute with him diverting him from the many and varied dangers of the everyday environment.

When I started reading your thread I was dreading him getting bigger, stronger and more exhausting but now I am quite looking forward to the walks, park trips and general tiring out missions that we can do when he is a bit older.

i know exactly how you feel. You could have been describing my ds in that post. He's now 21 months. Complete tornado, does not sleep.....EVER. not talking very much........but is spot on with aiming things at peoples faces :p Ive gone as far as to have appointments with the health visitor as ive just been in a permanent state of frustration and stress since he was born. They have said that hes extremelly lively but not anything to worry about. ( will get better as he gets older.....were the words used )
Seriously though i know its horrid and stressfull........hes my first ( and probably only ) child, and im gutted that ive not had 5 seconds to sit back and enjoy it....but hes slowly getting better.......( touch wood :p ) as im begining to beable to really reason with him, im finding ways to start to control things. No miracles as of yet..... ive sustained so many injuries ( as have the cat and dog ) in the process of trying to get some discipline and order into the house.....but things are looking up.......and i hope that it happens the same for you. People brush it off, but unless you have a child like that you can never know just how consuming it all is!!! Wouldnt change the little monster for the world....but sometimes itd be great if there was a pause button ;)

absentminded I note your (probably only) child comment...on a serious note, ds1 ramped his behaviour up just as I got pg with dd2. We certainly hadn't been actively trying and I was absolutely terrified about how I would cope with him and a new baby. I won't lie, it's been hard but dd2 is so different to ds1.

When ds1 was doing his 'thing', I would look at the other children at the playgroups we went to and the the same age children of friends and wonder what I was doing wrong, whether he really was harder work or whether I was just being overly stressy about him. Since dd2 has come along, I now realise he was much harder work.

However, on the flip side, the gap has closed, in terms of behaviour, between his peers. He is still hard work, but my friends who have dcs the same age have also found their once easy going baby has turned into someone much more tricky and complex to deal with.

I also subscribe to the notion that the more tested we are as a parent at an early age, the better the parent we are.