Are 3-year-olds a nightmare or am I just a crap mother?

[madamez]

DS is now 3 and I don't think we get through a sinlge day without a meltdown of some kind. He whines, he mills rond my legs, he refuses to do what he's told, he makes simulataneous contradictory requests and then just screams...
OK there are plenty of times when he's cute and funny and cuddly but sometimes I am just so tired and grouchy that I don't know what to do.

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for starting this thread! I honestly thought I was going to throttle my DD1 yesterday (she's 2.5yo) NOTHING was suitable! No colouring, no playing with toys, no dancing & singing, no washing, no playing with water ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! It makes me feel a bit better to know that other mums are going through the same!

Oh! Forgot to add that I haven't had a proper night sleep in a year, since my DD2 arrived... I now know why they use sleep deprivation for torture...

You have my complete sympathy Madamez. No words of wisdom, just grit your teeth and get through it. My ds is 4 and a half and still going strong. There isn't a day goes by without him stropping, whingeing, moaning....the list goes on. I adore him but my god he is very, very hard work. Nothing like his sister (aged 6.5) who is generally chilled and very easy.

Ds is staying with relatives for 3 days and me and dd are "chilling together"

Well today has been fairly horrible: major strop this morning because I had to go to the bank and DS didn't want to go out, then strop because there was no bus and we had to walk and I wouldn't carry him (it's not far and he's a really big boy and I have a back problem), then shrieking because I was cooking dinner and didn;t want to read his f*ing new Lauren Child book to him... at least this evening was Daddy's evening to mind him while I went out. Came back to pallid harassed dad who normally claims that DS is just horrible with me because I'm the primary parent... dad says... 'Argh, three-year olds...' Now we are both wondering if he will show his monster side to all the GPs over Xmas. On the one hand my mother will no longer think I am making it up, on the other hand she will tell me its all my fault

I think someone should go into the Dragon's Den with the proposal of setting up a temporary home for unwanted 3 year olds. It has good franchise potential.

well, I think my neighbour must now think even less of me if at all possible - am pretty sure she overheard me quite shoutily asking DD to let DS 'suck his fingers' and stop pulling his hand out of his mouth as we were trying to get to preschool (we'd already had a full scale tantrum showdown over me not getting the IN The Night Garden DVD on quick enough)

Except I didn't say 'suck his fingers' - I spoonerised it.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarghhhhhhhh

Thanks for sharing your feelings. I always blame myself for being impatient to my son, although all the friends admire me but I can't see it. I still don't know much about parenting but at least I've learnt that I'm not alone. X'mas is next week, wishing you all Merry X'mas and a Happy New Year.

good thread. good posts. like your work. all of you.

my almost 2yo, 3yo and 4yo all drive me nuts if i spend longer than a couple of hours with them. the 4yo is getting much more reasonable to be fair.

i would agree abt 3 yr olds. i found 2 easy, but 3 is a struggle not least cos she gets up 2 or 3 times a night now for some reason and we are all exhausted. Lovely to see how their litle brains are whirring tho'!

Sorry you have had another hard day with your 3yo. I have had it easy so far today, ds in fairly sanguine mood - happily munching a muffin he has iced himself. I am always waiting for the next wig out though which can spoil lovely calm moments[sigh]. However dd (20m)is more of a worry at the mo as she is spotty, snotty and coughing with a virus of some kind - making her miserable...

well started this post a couple of hours ago and dd projectile vomited on me and floor (choked on muffin) since then she has been v miserable and clingy poor mite.

Who said 3yo were hard work - they all are .... [dramatic sigh]

Blimey,only yesterday I was telling a friend that I didn't believe in the terrible twos and that it was more a case of the thrashworthy threes.

My ds is being a PITA at the moment. Winds up his older sister,refuses to walk, kicks off at a moments notice and just generally wears me out on a daily basis.

I had to miss dd's carol service as he was in such a vile mood and I knoew that I couldn't cope with him alone fro two hours,trapped in a hot stuffy hall.

spoke to soon didn't I - have just had to deal with some particularly vile behaviour from ds.

Heard muffled cries of dd from living - I was in kitchen - ran to them - ds was suffocating dd with his duvet (brought down this am as he wanted to cuddle up with dd in it)

Poor dd is snotty so having trouble breathing anyway - my heart was in my mouth and I had to storm off with dd to avoid going ott with ds. How do you make a 3yo understand about suffocation? Have calmed down now but - arrghhh

Thank you for starting this thread madamez. I'm in the same boat with dd who is 3.5, and up until about 2 months ago she was basically chilled out and sweet natured (well, most of the time). Cut to the present and we have meltdowns every day - sometimes 3 or 4 a day - and that's in the relatively short time I am actually with her, because she is in nursery full time.

She does not have these meltdowns in nursery - she is just the same as always with the staff - so I reckon whatever emotional upheaval she is going through has to be expressed only to me and her dad (and gps too sometimes).

Total empathy and sympathy. I am sincerely hoping it's a (very short) phase.

Well today was a rather better day despite him having all manner of sugary rubbish to eat at playgroup Xmas party - only one mini strop when he didn't want to get out of the bath. Perhaps it's the Xmas spirit - or perhaps there is light at the end of the tunnel.

my terrible wonderful 3 year olds have just gone to bed.

"mummy i wanna cuggle"

cuggle given

"mummy i wanna kiss"

kisses all round, door closed

"NOOOOOO, I can't see, mummy, leave the door OPEN!!!!"

herd of elephants parade round bedroom then tiny voice can be heard under the door,

"night night mummy, see you morning"

silence

"mummy, I want juice"

"mummy, I want a kiss"

"mummy, I wanna cuggle"

JUST GO TO FLIPPING BED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

When you are tired and grouchy and its freezing cold outside, there's no harm in turning up the heating, switching on the TV, handing them a nice mouth-filling Curly Wurly and letting them sit in a TV stupor for a while, if the alternative is going into battle with them (which never works!). Sometimes they even drop off (yippee!).

The other alternative is strapping them in their car seat and just driving (for miles and miles - preferably through town). Let them wave at everyone on the buses. lorry drivers etc (my DD thinks thats the business!), look at all the Christmas lights etc.

Other interesting things she liked to do at that age: bus journeys, looking round churches, gardening, sand play. Actually gardening was always a fave one: endless hole digging and filling up with water.

But in general, I found that the whining etc stopped as soon as she got out of the house.

Hooray - dh is off work today and is taking ds off to an open farm with big play barn / softplay area! DD is still ill so I am staying with her - ds is fine and has been cooped up for a couple of days so it should cheer him up and tire him out - result.

I just have to get him bathed and dressed.

we had a VILE day yesterday, just hideous, capped off with DD refusing to go to bed - in the end I had to threaten her into bed by saying I'd take away her Upsy-Daisy doll. Which I HATE doing as it feels so mean, but nothing else worked (the thread of that and not letting her have the door open worked)

still DH is now off for 2 weeks, she can hassle him. I'll pay for it in the awful week after he goes back to work (when there is no preschool, no playgroup, no my parents to go and see....I am dreading it) but maybe I'll get a rest now. (apart from the incredible non-sleeping baby)

Great in a 'your not alone' kind of way to read all these posts!
My DS1 is 3 in Jan - he started the terrible twos at 20 months with headbanging on the floor. Slight respite during the summer - now fully in the threenagers phase. I WONT and now I NOT BOTHER are his favorite words!

Our neighbours must think we are torturing him most days oh the screaming & tears - some friends came round the other day to drop a christmas card off - they didn't even knock at the door they just pushed the card through and ran!

ha ha ha ha ha ha never a truer word said

my DS1 is so unbelievably cute and gorgeous i hav to restrain myself from smothering him to death with kisses and cuddles ( as he squirms away and shouts at the top of his voice...no big boys don't have cuddles)

and then.......he is a complete little git, and i want to lock him under the stairs and go on holiday or something.

I now have LO who is just 6 weeks, in the main my DS is lovely with him and refers to him as "my baby" and wants to stroke him and cuddle him, and then in the next turn he is trying poke his eyes out and just laughs maniacally at me when i tell him off,

everyday i have to remind myself that he is only 3 (though he has the wit and wile of a canny old man) and to try to be patient and to not spend the day telling him off,

and generally just concentrate on the times when he is iressitably cute

I was lulled into a false sense of security by DS1. he was awful from 18 months to 3 and then became lovely. DS2 on the other hand has been a stroppy little bugger from about 18 months and now he's 3.8 and steadily getting worse. he refuses to give up his dummy (DS1 handed it over happily at 2 and a half) and is going through a nightmare food refusing stage at the moment.
Obviously he is lovely and wonderful etc etc (necessary caveat) but I do feel like returning him to sender some (most) days!

my 3 year old was a complete chilled out dream until new baby arrived... Has taken some months to settle down but still now is having terrible twos terribly late! Fortunately I've learnt my lesson and am much more fierce now and can silence him with a dark stare and the threat of the naughty step within seconds...

8 yr old, on the other hand, started off being a shocking sod at 18mo and hasn't stopped since... This very evening he got the phonebook out to look for a children's home cos he hated us so much.

he relented and went to bed...

My dd is 3 yrs old and screms for attention is that normal, or has it got to do with her father who also sdhouts at her, and does not try to explain things resonably. Any ides what to do with the father and dd?

Miss Muffet, there is no pleasing 3yos, obviously shouting is not good but the amount of energy we expend explaining things reasonably to DD ... we get a miniature* Kevin-style teenage strop in return, and eventually it descends into shouting anyway.

• that's the person doing it who's miniature, not that the strop itself is in any way miniature

ds is same (was 3 in september) - he's so mercurial, it wears me out.

a friend of mine with two boys says it's a hormone surge....

he's starting a new cm in Jan one morning a week and I'm dreading it as I know he'll kick up a right stink!

I refer to my ds as the demon spawn from hell atm (he is 3.2).

If he wasn't cute occasionally, he would be no longer.

Oh.Dear.God.

If I hear 'but I don't want to' one more time I will throttle him.

Even Father Christmas isn't a threat as he apparently didn't want any presents anyway