3yo that is constantly touching things and wont sit still!

[taralou89]

Hi, am after a bit of advice. My 3 year old boy is driving me mad!
I have a 5 year old girl who was never ever like this, so his behaviour is completely new to me, and I'm not sure whether it's just a boy thing or not.

Basically he can't ever sit still. He has to be constantly moving and touching things. If we're in shops I am having to constantly tell him not to touch this and not to touch that, to come back here, not to run off etc.
I basically sound like a broken record.

At home he is no better. He can't even sit still for longer than 5 minutes! He is constantly climbing furniture, jumping and running around, slamming doors, turning lights on and off, throwing things, breaking his toys, hurting his sister. He spilt cooking oil on my carpet deliberately a couple of days ago too! Not long ago I went out for a girls night out and had my brother babysit as hubby was working, he did not go to sleep until about 10.30pm and ripped loads of his wallpaper off his wall and even managed to put a fair sized hole in the wall too somehow!

At night when I put him to bed, he just won't sleep! I've tried everything I can think of to stop him but nothing is working :-(
The last few weeks he has been waking up really early in the mornings and creeping downstairs ever so quietly to help himself to food. Problem is he is climbing to get in our cupboards and i'm worried he could hurt himself from the climbing or choke on food and I wouldn't know, let alone any of the other dangers of a three year old being in a kitchen! Not only that but he's wasting loads, he takes a bite out of lots of different things then just leaves it!
I had my back turned away for a few minutes the other day and in that time he had managed to turn my mums fish tank blue by emptying a whole bottle of white spot treatment into it I told him off for this and took him home, Whilst I was out of the room he took himself upstairs and put his sisters barbie car in our fish tank! He also has a habit of letting our parrots out their cage (I have now padlocked them).
I'm at my wits end and don't know what to do with him! I've tried ignoring him, naughty step, taking his favourite toy away, talking to him calmly, shouting at him, he just stands and laughs at me or changes the subject or wanders off. Is this normal 3 year old boy behaviour?!

I don't have a dd but ds 3 yo is like this - v energetic - won't sit still. I thought it was just what they were all like as no girl to compare it to.

Yep, completely normal. Or we both have demon children. I am told that the best bet is to take them for a run (like a dog) so that they're too exhausted to cause any mayhem.

Keep him active not sitting quietly. You'll get more of whatever you pay attention to- so distract from _ve and focus on +ve. He's normal.

Thanks for replies, even when he is active he still seems to seek out trouble and cause mischief! Please say it gets better?! lol!

of course it will get better if you keep on reinforcing the +ve!

Mine moves around all the time but we give him things to help with and generally keep him occupied esp if he starts to be naughty. Even reading books seems involve running around the table between pages.

He has snacks available that he is allowed and raiding cupboards and the fridge isn't allowed. We have a baby gate on his room so he cant come down on his own as we have a dog.

Lots of well done etc for playing nicely and helping and the occasional visit to the naughty chair for things like biting his sis or poking the dog.

I think it can be normal for boys or girls just luck of the draw i suppose.

What is your daily routine?
Does he go to nursery?

IME routine is everything.
Going out every morning after a good breakfast, walking a couple of miles, lots of running, jumping, climbing, plenty of food and drink, more walking in the afternoon followed by a proper winding down period and an early night, plus a very solid gate across the bedroom door all help.

You have to think of little boys as puppies. It helps.

TBH - he shouldn't have access to the fish tank, his sisters toys, the parrots, any chemicals or cleaning products or food.

I am afraid I just never went shopping with DS2. That was hard because there was no internet shopping back then.

He goes to pre school but that is term time only so school hols he is home with me and his sister.

He has a gate on his bedroom door, but he can open it! We've tried several and he's been able to open them all! There's also a gate across kitchen but that's useless as well because of him being able to open them!
The parrots are in living room so no way of preventing him access and as for fish tank etc it's in her bedroom which he isn't supposed to go in, he climbs to get to the cupboards of food! It's not that he's allowed access to things, he makes it so that he is! Our daily routine depends on whether its school days or school hols but generally speaking it's get up have breakfast get dressed then either off to pre school or out for the day (if school hols) then it's home for lunch after preschool and time for just him and mummy to play. Pick sister up from school, come home, play, have tea, shower time and wind down time and bed.
I do lots of praise when he does something good or behaves well too.
Going to have to put locks on all cupboard doors to stop the helping himself I think!

I mean I have locks on the fridge and cupboards and if he gets in he is told off. As there are snacks he is allowed there is no reason to risk being told off taking other things.
Baby gate is secured with a padlock (its a home made gate) - adults can step over it so no fire risk.

But mostly id stop trying to solve the boy problem and just look at who he is and work with it. Mine wants attention so he gets lots for helping, playing nice with his sis etc. He wants to get exercise so we give him little jobs like taking wood inside / upstairs (kindling), fetching bits for his little sis etc and give lots of praise. Also go for walks to the park etc most days. We join in if brings a book but don't mind that he thinks running and reading are a combo.