3 year old constantly crying

[gingerbabe]

Help! DD1 is such a baby. She will cry at the slightest thing - bumping into something is turned into a right drama and being told she shouldn't do something produces waterworks. For these sorts of things we have taken the step of asking her to stop and then just ignoring her until she does, which seems to be working. However, worse is when she is playing with another child and they do something she doesn't like - take something from her, shout too loudly or try to get her to do something she doesn't want to do. Every time it results in loud tears and cries of 'Mummy'. I can understand that she seems to be a sensitive sould but I'm worried that if this continues she'll never handle the school playground, so I really want to try to stop it. Any suggestions???

snap - maybe it is a phase I wil watch this thread with interest to see if there are any solutions

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I know the theory about it stopping when they realise it doesn't get them anywhere...but HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE???!!! DD2 is nearly 4 and - honestly - honestly - we have never given way to her when she makes a fuss and we have explained and explained and explained (and followed up by action) that making a fuss gets nowhere and reasonable requests made in a reasonable manner will usually get a positive response but she's still a total drama queen. Any advice?

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Do you have any other younger children? My (almost) 3 yr old became a bit more quick to cry and want mummy after her sister was born and she could see me responding quickly to her crying. Just a thought.

thanks, I usually end up irate and remove myself. Removing her ends up so horrendous I can rarely bring myself to do it - I have to pretty much physically wrestle with her while she gets more and more hysterical and - worst of all - she looks scared of me, which is a really horrible thing to see on your darling's face. So I tend to try the ignoring - maybe the problem could be that I'm not very good at being objective about it all and I do get emotionally wound up - so that even though I'm ignoring her and not giving in she can probably pick up the vibes (?)- ie she knows that she's getting a reaction - or is that just crediting a 4 year old with too much emotional intelligence?

Does she go to nursery or playgroup? My son was (still is, really) exactly the same, and someone suggested I ask at nursery if he was as tearful and whingy as he is with me. Lo and behold, he wasn't at all. I see that you also have another child, and I definitely think it has something to do with it. I have started to try and spend some extra one to one time with my eldest, and I do think things are slowly improving. He is also much worse if he is tired.

I have two daughters, 3yr 8mnths and 12 months. The eldest is driving me nuts. She has generally been more whingy and unsettled since her sister was born, but it has recently become much worse. She bursts into tears at the smallest thing, screaming with it. She reminds me very much of someone struggling with premenstrual hormones - sensitive, grumpy, unsettled and tearful.
Her behaviour deteriorated when she started back at preschool after the summer break (following her sister's spring birth) and started with a new childminder two afternoons a week. For a variety of reasons we changed childminder after five months to someone she had been with previously. She seemed more settled for a couple of weeks, but her behaviour has escalated again. I do not think she is this tearful at preschool or childminder. She is bright, empathetic and funny on good form, but usually now whingy, tearful and volatile with me or when we go anywhere. We try to be consistently calm (although don't always achieve this after a year of 2-3 hrs sleep a night), explain that her behaviour isn't acceptable, use the time out step if she doesn't calm down to give her time to cry away from everyone else - but it seems to have no impact. I'm getting to the point of not accepting invitations because her behaviour impacts so much on our time with others. She, meantime, is desperate not to be at home, wants to be out of the house all the time or have people round. I'm not a perfect parent, but I am a reasonable one and this really upsets me. I hate seeing her this volatile so much of the time. I am running out of tactics and would REALLY appreciate any ideas.

Hi. Just browsing through posts and came across this thread. These things are generally quite complex so not always one simple solution but having recently trained in Triple P positive parenting, does give some good advice about managing such behaviour. Is a bit behaviourist for some parents but often behaviourist stuff does work if you give it a try. I find that the reasoning with them and talking to them about it can often reinforce the behaviour, even if you are trying to tell them its wrong. I reckon that a very prompt decisive action often works better, eg. removing from situation, taking away toy, etc. Time out as mentioned. Some very sensitive children do find this really difficult but if you are doing it in a calm and decisive manner, they do eventually get the picture (can take a while)By sying this, some people may disagree and think you should always spend time reasoning but sometimes I think there is a time for this and a time for action. You can then talk it through with them later if you want. Anyway, good luck!!!!And can always try Triple P website if you want more info.