Very independent 16 month old getting frustrated.

[ceceliajames]

My DD is almost 16 month old and has started to getting really frustrated about doing everything for herself. She tantrums if I try to feed her anything, hates being dressed or having her nappy change. She wants to be able to do everything for herself (although with me constantly in a 1foot radius, mind!). I'm happy to spend the extra time to keep her happy letting her do things herself and cleaning her messes afterwards, but I'm just wondering if anyone had any tips/good products or toy ideas to make this process easier? Anyone have any experience of this and how much is lasts for? It seems like everything these days makes her upset.

My youngest was like this, and I'm sorry to break it to you, but she still is(age 4)

I found it helpful to give her jobs to do, such as putting a load of washing on the floor and getting her to put it in the machine (most of it didn't actually get in there)

She loved to be helpful, and never wanted any help from me to do anything. I just went with it and embraced her fiesty independent personality. I also learnt to accept that she would have a meltdown when I had to do something for her (dressing/nappy changes) and just let her get on with it

Is she speaking much? With mine, it got better as commication improved (from about 18 months in their case).

another thing mine loved was, if I was cooking I asked her to 'help' I gave her some flour and water to mix up in a plastic bowl and said she was helping mummy make dinner.

Thanks for the responses :) She's okay with her vocab but it's just things like "kitty cat" "tea time" "bubbles" etc so not much help in terms of her frustration. I'll try giving her more "jobs" to do and see how she gets on helping :)