Agh, I feel like I'm going insane! My 20 month old daughter is really testing my sanity with a number of quite challenging behaviours. She is an intelligent, lovely, funny little soul most of the time, with a great sense of humour, but has a number of behaviours that I'm finding quite hard to manage.
- CONSTANT temper tantrums: She's throwing temper tantrums what feels like 1-2 times an hour these days. She just seems to get extremely upset and has a meltdown anytime anything happens that's even slightly different than what she wants. All I can I think is that she's just very determined to have everything her own way. She threw probably around 10 tantrums yesterday, where she just completely melts down and starts crying and screaming and throwing herself on the floor....etc. She can be set off by anything at all, for example this morning it was that she tore the side off her waffle. I try to just stay calm and explain to her why she can't have/do whatever it is she wants, I try to ignore the bahaviour and wait till it passes (but she's very determined!), or try to find a distraction, but none of these seem to make any difference.
- Poor eating: I am also having a very difficult time trying to get her to eat healthy meals. I feel like she can't be getting anywhere near enough protein or vitamins and minerals and am worried sick about it. She will eat some things only when it suits her, like toast, cereal, cheese, milk, occasionally some chicken or fish, but these are generally very small quantities, and mostly rejects almost everthing I offer her (definitely any type of fruit or vegetable except cucumbers), often throwing the food on the floor. I still breastfeed her but am keen to wean her completely in the next few months, but keep holding off because of her poor eating. I also can't get her to take multivitamins in any way (I tried in water, milk, yoghurt, food, no way).
- Scratching: She ADORES her big brother (8yrs old), but also has moments where she will randomly scratch him very hard on the face completely out of the blue (I feel terrible when this happens because he is so VERY kind and patient with her). I don't know whether this is an attention ploy, but she gets so much attention I have no idea why she would feel the need to do this.
My son was nowhere near as difficult to manage at this age. I've tried to read every guide book etc and handle these behaviours as calmly and consistently as I can, but am at my wits end at this stage.
Sorry for the long incoherent rant, but I'm just feeling terrible about it all, feeling like a bit of a failure as a Mum and just needed to vent.
Off to cry into my pillow :-(