DC3 is due in September. Already have DS (4) and DD 2.8.
Bedtime is a nightmare. They will be completely knackered but will not stay in bed. DS has to have a stair gate to stop them going in and out of each others rooms and into mine. I tuck them in, say goodnight and leave but within ten minutes they're out of bed playing or shouting for me. I've been up to them 5 times since 6:45.
Behaviour wise DD is going through a stage where she will strop over nothing. She was playing on the floor, I sat on the sofa and she began screaming that I was in her seat (Sheldon Cooper has nothing on her). She will scream and cry and thrash about until she gets her own way.
DS is going through a stage where he calls everyone names such as poo head etc. tried ignoring it but nothing works. He is also still not toilet trained last July I started him and he was making really good progress staying dry but has only done about 7 poos in the toilet since then. Now he is wetting himself regularly and not even telling me and still soiling. He starts school in September and I'm terrified he will be the smelly kid with no friends.
I feel like they're running rings around me. I really don't know what to do.
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Behaviour/development
I can't cope with the DCs anymore!
Kyrptonite · 07/04/2013 19:25
forever - I 'gently' smacked his hand and left him in his room which had a night light on. His bedroom door was open and the hall way light was on. Hardly a psychologically damaging experience.
As for me being 'defensive' I have been on enough of these threads to know which way the wind blows on the subject.
My cousin came to visit a few months ago. She put a plate of finger food in front of her two year old. The child refused to eat it. The mum insisted. The child took the food and threw it on the floor. The mum dusted it off and put it back on the plate, explained how the DC was being unreasonable. The child threw the food back on the floor. After a few more attempts the mum gave up and put the toddler down. Every 10 min or so the mum would get up, find her DC and get him to eat a piece of food. It took about 90 min to feed her DC.
I am NOT advocating a return to yesteryear when parents would cane their children or where a clip across the ear was a substitute for reasoning with a child. However, I am often 
by parents who think that gently smacking a child's hand and telling that it's naughty to throw food onto the floor is going to turn that child into a damaged man that will abuse his children and hit his wife.
Oi!!! No bunfights in my thread!
DD is still awake. I've shoved on the only audio book I can find in her room. It is unfortunately a collection if Disney princess stories but to be fair they would send me to sleep 
I was suggesting that my cousin reinforced the lesson that throwing food onto the floor was not acceptable.
I was NOT suggesting that he should have been smacked for not eating.
In anycase, there are health reasons why young children should be regularly fed as opposed to only when that child feels hungry. So I'm a bit 
as to why depriving a child of a regularly meal is an acceptable way of reinforcing a lesson.
I would sit that child down and if he wants to sit there and take 90 min to eat his meal then I have a smart phone to keep me entertained for 90min. :) He''ll soon learn that the sooner he finishes the sooner he can get back to the fun stuff.
Am i missing something? Your parenting responabilities dont end just because its dark 
I dont see how keeping them in a room and smacking them or shouting at them is going to help them go to sleep.
Have you tried reading to her or even sitting there with her when she goes to sleep?
This is what worked for me in the times dc did not want to go to bed and I was exhausted: I snuggled up in bed with them for a story and then after, turned out the light and went to sleep!
They would giggle at first at the novelty of it and the cuddling up took away the stress, then they would always quickly settle.
Often I would snooze myself for 10 minutes or so, they never failed to go to sleep and I sometimes would deliberately snore a little and not move!
Then when all quiet, I would then sneak downstairs.
Works every time 
DD fell asleep about 10! Hoping for a better night today. Behaviour wise today has gone well. No accidents and I haven't shouted once
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