toddler melancholy??!!!

[strangerthanfiction]

My dd, almost 21 months, is so into things going wrong / breaking, etc. If we read a book she always wants to get to the page when the little girl falls down / the teddy cries / something gets broken. Her favourite words are 'oh dear' which she says with a very sad serious voice and she continually points out things that are broken or messy. She's quite a serious little lady, doesn't go for giggles and rough and tumble much at all. This all started a couple of months or so ago but it's just got worse and worse as times gone on. She also now says 'oh dear, broken' etc. etc. in her sleep! Should I worry? Is this a phase? Does it say anything generally about her particular character or is it very typical?

Oh yes, forgot to say, she also loves to play act scenarios with her toys when they bump their heads and cry. And she always remembers incidents from the day before in which a child has cried / got hurt / something got broken etc. When I dropped the shopping basket in Tesco recently she went on about it for 2 weeks.

Sobernow, that's so sweet, I can imagine dd saying exactly the same kind of thing. I have to really watch what I say to her as she listens with such a morbid, avid intensity whenever I say anything like 'you can't walk on there because you might fall and bump your head.' She also has a very vivid imagination already, her favourite play is inventing little things for her 'people' (toys).

bump?

Sobernow - sounds a little familiar. Ds is also 21 mths and says "oh dear" and "sorry" a lot.

He's fascinated by whether things are "broken" or "working" and like your dd gets very distressed if he spills something or breaks something - "ooooh noooo a big mess, sorry mummy" said with big doe eyes - breaks my heart!

His favourite song atm is 3 little monkeys - but it's only sung when ds bumps his own head first...

I think they're just working out the differences between the way things are meant to be and that something can happen to change that.

How about getting a book about doctors/nurses and a doctor's bag for making things better so she's not getting to distressed by the "brokeness" of things. Or start a dolls hospital or a fix-it workshop/garage etc.

Meant to post to STF too!

Thanks muddaofsuburbia. Well, this is the weird bit, she doesn't seem upset by these things, she seems to actively seek them out and be very intensely interested in them. For instance the bit on 'Goldilocks' when the little bear's chair breaks, she'll look at that picture for hours saying 'oh dear, oh dear' with big eyes, but also looking secretly quite pleased with it.

It's been worse today. None stop talk of disaster of children crying and now she keeps making her toys cry. Am I just being stupid to worry about it?

not sure what to say I would monitor situation and then approach gp if it continued to worry me

Hmmmmm. Ok now I can see why you're wondering about all this. Has she got older siblings or older kids she sees regularly that she could be picking things up from?

Ds played cars once with my brother who insisted on making them crash and now everything on wheels "cashes" and goes bang with much giggling. They're like little sponges at this age and I guess only need to see or hear something once for them to repeat it over and over. Any TV progs she could have caught sight of in the last month or so which had crying kids or hurt kids? Not that i'm suggesting she's watching Casualty on a regular basis, but you know what I mean

Will keep pondering, but try not to read anything sinister into this, I really think she's playacting.

Thanks again mudda, I'm sure you're right. I guess I'm confused as much as anything about where she's got this from. Part of me thinks it may be a reaction to some bad experiences she had of being hit at playgroup by some rougher kids. If that's the case then it's probably good that she works it out through her play?

snap - my ds aged 21 months loves books about chicks with chicken pox and does a really good ' oooh dear' for all the spotty bits and plasters, he also loves scribbling in books then saying 'oh dear' plus sad but secretly pleased face
I'm sure it's nothing to worry about stf - play acting in its infancy - perhaps they'll be hollywood actors?

It sounds like your dd has a really strong imagination. I wouldn't be overconcerned, prob just try to channel her imagination into something else. She may also be noticing your concern and loving the extra attention.

I think that is the age for imagination development, my dd suddenly had an invisable friend called 'essie', was very strange cos I didn't expect it at her age.

I think the suggestion of doctors/nurses is great, or any kind of dressing up game, to enable her to develop this. She'll soon move on to soemthing else.

PS the other thing I think is that dd prob doesn't have a real understandign of the implications of the melancholy in any case. So whereas it is concerning you, to her it has little meaning in any case.

My dd comes out shocking things sometimes, and she is 4 now. When we were playing the other day and I pretended I was knocked out she was all ready to get the matches to cremate me!!

Please don't worry - it's really normal IMO and Just a sign of curiousity. After all we all watch stuff like Casualty, World's Worst Car Crashes, Big Brother ( ) Special Babies etc etc - I think human beings are attracted to doom and disaster without being terribly traumatised by it. It's interesting and also I think children adore the idea of having the power to make it better. Ds has a great book I think your dd would LOVE - it's got reusable stickers to look like plasters, and is all about toys with poorly tummies and noses and arms etc, and you can choose a plaster and decide where the toy needs it. Ny friend's two girls were completely mesmerized by this book for years. ds is asleep now so I can't get it to give you the title but will try to remember to post it later.

Thanks aloha, that book sounds right up dd's street.

Poppy, that's a hilarious story. I can see it all coming, dd in her nurses uniform. With her scalpel ... agh!!!

Typical flightly mummy fashion today I'm not so worried as I was remembering a favourite game of mine as a small child. My brother had a friend called Andrew who I kind of 'fancied' (as much as a 3 year old can fancy a 7 year old ) and I used to love getting him to lie down and pretend to be dead. And I don't think I'm a sadist. Or at least not too much of one .

ds2 (2) is obsessed with bumping. If I ask him what he can see in the trees (on the shcool run) he says "james bumping". When I ask him what he dreamed he said "thomas bumped gordon, James bumped gordon too". When he sees aeroplanes he says "aeroplane bump" to which I reply- hope not! and if I stop the car suddenly he shouts "bump".

His favourite words in spech therapy are "oh no"| "oh boy" (we are using an american system) and "oh dear". If he sees something on TV, or if I drop something he say "uh oh" very gravely.

If I hurt myself he sayd "poor mum" then"kiss" and insists on kissing where it hurts (great - complete copying of me - fantastic- been having to pay someone to try and teach my elder son to do that).

I enjoy it- it's normal development and I've never seen that before. His imagination is devloping - fantastic and I suspect in a few months time he'll have more interesting dreams than 'thomas bumped gordon and james bumped gordon too". Did lamost manage to persuade him he had dreamed of babies this morning......

ds has just told me 3 stories, 'mummy and the thunderstorm', mummy and the jelly sweet', 'mummy and the tractor'.

all 3 ended in me getting run over!!

example,
ds "then the rain came down, splash splash splash CRASH"
mummy "oooh, was that a big crash of thunder?"
ds "no, that was you getting run over by a bus"!!!

LOL maisystar, they're such morbid little creatures aren't they? My dd keeps wanting me to pretend to cry (I don't think she's actually seen me cry since she was very tiny) as well as wanting me to get her toys to cry. Then she comes in with the sympathy 'ooh, poor mummy, mummy cry' etc. etc. I probably shouldn't indulge her at all but she's very insistent, bordering on the obsessive about it!

Jimjams, that's really interesting, about the dreams I mean. How old is your dd2? Dp and I are longing for the moment dd can tell us what / if she dreams.

ds2 was 2 in january. I don'tthink for one moment that he dreams of Thomas - actually he might do he is obssessed. I think its just become a stock answer as he got a good response the first time I asked him "did you have nice dreams" Was so bowled over when he said "I dreamed thomas" that he got lots of praise (you have to put this in context- my 5 year old son can't talk- so any sort of conversation blows me away to be honest).

he may have dreamed of babies last night as he came into bed with us all sleepy at about 6.30 and was yabbering on about 8 babies. At first he said he had but then he changed his mind and said "I dreamed thomas bumped gordon and james bumped gordon too".

Jimjams, I'd be bowled over if dd talked about her dreams at 2 even without a non-talking 5 year old! It's amazing and very fascinating. All we have to go on are the murmurings dd does in her sleep. Tonight she's not very well, a fever and has been a bit sick and generally off-colour so is restless and murmuring about her 'noddy book' which is her obsession. Noddy is no. 1 hero in our home. She's also said 'broken car' a few times as there's a car with a broken front light just outside our block of flats that seems to have struck her. When she passes it she says 'ahhh ... car sad eye' which I thought was very inventive to think a car can see with its headlights.

Things getting broken / people crying etc is relatively dramatic stuff, so maybe that is what is interesting to your dd?

My dd (23 months)is also fascinated by mess, catastrophe etc and loves to exclaim 'oh dear' or 'oh no' when things go wrong on tv / in books etc. I see other people have posted similarly re their kids. So I guess its all pretty normal

Yes, hmc, minor crisis is over, I am no longer worried and trying to see the funny side of my dd's dramatic imagination!