I'm struggling to cope with 2.10 year old DS. Any ideas appreciated!

[BionicEmu]

DS is 2.10. I love him dearly but I just cannot cope any more.

I have no idea how to deal with him or how to discipline him. He just ignores me - completely blanks me, shows no sign that he has heard me. If I crouch right down to him I just cannot get him to even look at me. He just looks away and starts talking about something else.

If I manage to get him to listen somehow & he doesn't like what I say then he attacks me. Hits, slaps, pulls my hair, scratches. Naughty step/chair doesn't work. Time out doesn't work. Confiscating toys doesn't work. Removing priveleges doesn't work.

I also have 7 month old DD. I can't leave him alone with her because he hurts her. He hits, pushes, sits on, rolls over & throws things at her.

Bedtime's a nightmare. He won't go to sleep on his own. I'm lucky if I'm back downstairs by 9pm (I'm sat in his room writing this now.)

I don't know what to do. I don't know how to be a parent to him. I love him so much, and I hate that he's been stuck with me for a mother.

Please, any ideas or advice would be very gratefully received.

My dd is also 2.10 and a human dynamo. We also have to stay with her til she sleeps - in our bed. She ignores what she doesn't want to hear and sometimes laughs at me when I'm telling her off about something. We haven't tried any discipline measures because to be honest, I just think this is what toddlers do. They're too young yet to think through the consequences of their behaviour.

Not much help, I'm afraid. I don't have any smaller children so I suppose it's been much easier for me to just ignore bad behaviour. My little one is so busy and active, I don't know how I'd cope if I had a baby too so hats off to you.

Do you love him? Of course you do so you need to stop being hard on yourself. He's lucky to have you as a mummy if he's loved and cared for. EVERYONE gets frustrated as a parent, that doesn't mean you're failing.

Keep the faith!

It sounds like you 've tried a lot of things, i can remember doing time out with ds at this age and feeling it had no emotional impact, he just didn't seem to feel it... But sticking with it helped me and he did eventually get it. I also didn't realise how much of normal communication would need teaching, i repeated lots at age 2/3 'eyes to eyes' to get him to look at me when i was disciplining him, he didn't do this naturally as dd did, even now aged 5 i still remind him of this. I worked with him on empathy too, sometimes he would rough and tumble with dd, she'd get hurt and cry and he'd be oblivious... So i used to say to him 'stop check' which meant stop what you are doing and check she's ok, i taught him to say 'are you ok dd?' and then listen for the answer. Using a few words and the same words each time really helped, you will probably need to do it ten times longer than you think for it to work!

You sound worn out with it and like he is the one in charge - at this age a close friend kindly suggested to me that it was important my kids learnt where the fell in the pecking order as i had given them too much power!

My sympathies OP - my DS is very very similar at 2.3.
He blanks me, finds it funny to hurt me and says 'funny' when I tell him off, but also loses control a lot and flails around and hurts himself in the process. The rage really confuses me.
I try to stay calm and not react to it, as I don't want to feed the fire, but honestly, the second it starts I can feel myself panicking inside.
He is also the sweetest most gorgeous thing on the planet, but some days I'd sell him to the circus!

You're not alone - loads of us out there in the same boat.

The only thing that works with my 2.11 year old is planning lots of physical activity (walking through the park, swimming, playground, playdates in the garden). Keeping him distracted helps too, so for example we sing nursery rhymes as we walk to stop him noticing he's getting tired and whining. When mine acts up really badly he's usually tired, hungry or bored so I'm trying to anticipate his needs before the meltdowns. Lots of days I fail utterly though, maybe we just have to live through it...