tantrums in 9 month old? is this normal?

[mumofben]

my previously happy and contented 9mo ds seems to have turned into an angry defiant little monster recently. I was expecting to have to deal with tantrums a bit later on and am fully signed up to naughty steps/reward charts etc when he has the capacity to understand the link between behaviour and consequences.
However, I'm a bit shocked that it has started so soon - how can you possibly reason with such a young child?
An example is where he used to cry for 2 secs if he didn't want to get out of the bath, now every time I get him out he kicks violently and makes furious shouty noises and is quite difficult to divert his attention to something else.

I would be really interested to hear if other people have had this and how they deal with it. I would also be interested whether it has anything to do with him being at nursery full time - with all the recent press about how nurseries can make children aggressive, I do wonder. If would be nice if anyone could dispel this as a myth!

My ds nearly 10 months is the same! DH says he takes after me! He also goes to nursery but only one afternoon which he loves and he never gets stroppy there so I think its a myth. He also hangs on to his bath seat when I try to get him out of the bath and has a good cry. I divert his attention by getting him to look in the mirror at himself. Usually works! He then has major strop when I try to get his pyjamas on. Maybe they are just asserting themselves, I don't think its anything to worry about.

Ds, now almost 2, was so like this. We used distraction and made as many things into a fun game as possible as soon as he started to understand. So for eg. we invented songs to accompany tasks he hated to make them more fun and keep the mood light. At a bit of a later stage we introduced stupid but effective things like getting him to bring his shoes to the special 'shoe step' to have them put on and tried to get hin to help - we'd have him screaming not wanting to put his shoes on before then.

Things improved a bit when he could walk alone and more so when he could communicate more. We may still find that he turns into a tantruming toddler again as he hits two and he does have his moments still but I generally find him much easier than he was at your dc's age.

My dd is one and she is a bit like this. To be honest, I think it is because she is frustrated because she cannot communicate with us and she has got a bit of a temper! I find distraction is the only thing that works at the moment. Talking about it with my mum this morning and she said I was like that until I could walk and say a few words and then I never hit the terrible twos. Perhaps we are getting them out of the way [hopeful emoction]

And look on the bright side - even if they do all get terrible twos badly we will be used to the tantrums by then and know how to deal with them!

My 10-month-old dd is just the same ? especially when getting out of the bath. Kicking, screaming, throwing rubber duck on the floor, the lot. It always lasts until her sleepsuit is on and we're sitting reading a bedtime story, when suddenly she becomes a little angel again.

She's at nursery full-time too but it hadn't crossed my mind that might be a factor ? I think she's just very tired and frustrated in the evenings after a long day's fun. Will watch this thread eagerly!

Ds is about to be 1 year. He started this about 10.5 months. And from what I understand from others it's quite normal! They are quite flash in the pan though and I can distract reasonably easily but I did have one where he literally threw himself on the floor, dramatically threw his head down and beat his fists. I have to admit to being a bad mummy as I stood there laughing! Another funny one was my dad drove a remote control car over his toys - DS went up to the car and beat it up. Again, I was in stitches!

Glad to hear others in the same boat. I thought it was just mine. We had a classic tonight. She just did not want her bedtime story. In fact, she has started loosing interest in books recently. She kicked, screamed and went stiff so she just went to bed without one. I think she is finally asleep now. She is just so full of beans I think she gets a bit manic tbh. I wish I could get her to calm down a bit!

All your comments have been really reassuring! it makes sense really, all that pent up energy when they can't yet run around or speak.
I used to have a quiet wind - down routine before bed with a book and bottle, and he too has started to kick and scream now and I was getting all worked up trying to calm him down.
However, the last couple of nights I've thought right - if you can't beat em, join em! I started playing rough and tumble games which he loves, and rolling him over till he starts shrieking with laughter. Although this goes against all my efforts to calm him down, he gets so exhausted, he's almost asleep before he gets into bed!
I'm so relieved that his behaviour is normal, and I haven't got some devil child on my hands!