Please help.

[helpmewithmytoddler]

I am really struggling and would be so grateful for advice please.

I look after my little boy aged 2.5 on two days a week (plus weekends, when his dad is around too). I used to really enjoy our time together but over the last couple of months he has been demonstrating some really challenging behaviour and I just don't know what to do. Everything feels like a battle - mealtimes, toileting, getting dressed, leaving the house, bathtime, going to bed...

By way of example, bathtime just now was a disaster. I pop him in, he plays for a bit, then I ask him to pop his toys back on the side and wash his legs (which he has done since about 1.5) and I wash his back. He refuses and tells me to go away. I try asking again calmly, I pause and give choices (does he want a little flannel, or does he use his hand? Or Mummy help?), he just refuses and screeches. I try everything again over five minutes with lots of gaps, also trying to distract him with a little song, and he refuses / screams / says to go away. I say it is time to have a little wash as the water is cold, Mummy will help, and as I start washing his back he flings a watering can full of water out of the bath all over the floor. I count to five but am so frustrated by this point I shout at him and haul him out, dry him and dress him whilst he screams.

He has gone to bed ok but I feel like an absolute witch for shouting at my child, and this is not the first time it's happened.

I try so hard to stay calm, let go things that aren't a big deal, repeat requests calmly, offer basic choices, praise good behaviour, but I try and try and try and then end up shouting. I've even tried to count to 10 out loud calmly but then I just get to 10 and then shout. One thing I have heard about and tried is to make things into a game or race but I really do struggle with that, I am not a hugely creative person and I find it excruciating and exhausting (I can be fun, honest, I just can't deal with the examples in How To Talk So Children Will Listen).

Please help me find a way forward.

I should add he has an excellent vocabulary - speaks in full sentences - and so it's not frustration in relation to that. I'm also 7 weeks pregnant and absolutely shattered / nauseous, and work is horrendous atm which isn't helping, but that's not his fault and I need to be better.

Hopeful bump for the morning crowd, I didn't see this appear in Active given all the threads yesterday evening.

He's no doubt sensing the change in you being PG.

I know you know but shouting isn't great, especially if you're doing it often.

How does he behave for his DF and at Childcare?

I know 😔 that's why I am asking for help.

He's pretty much the same with his dad. An absolute angel at nursery; and better with his grandparents when they have him.

Yeah didn't mean that in a telling off kind of way just that you might need a bit of support

2.5yo is the time they want control. Totally normal. They learn to push buttons and know when you're tired and play up extra then!

I wonder though if you're giving too many choices. There's times where you need them to just do it.

Think about it. Does he really need to "wash his legs"? I don't think I've ever specifically done that unless they're particularly grubby there. So perhaps forget about that. As long as he's getting out of the bath with the mud removed that'll do.
Pick your battles. He gets a choice when there's genuinely a choice, but if it's not something you want to compromise on, you tell him to do it.

Some choices are good-I used to give coat hating dd2 a choice between coat forwards or backwards. That way she had a coat on (and you wouldn't believe the number of times I got stopped to be told did I know her coat-done up all the way up the back with buttons(!) was backways) but thought she had a choice.

But when it was a case of you need to hold my hand because we're walking by a busy road, then there was no choice and no compromise.

Shouting isn't the worst thing in the world. He needed to know that it wasn't acceptable to throw the watering can out of the bath. A firm "no" is actually needed at times. Toddlers need, and actually like to have, boundaries, and they need to have them consistently applied and immediately applied.
For an older child I'd probably have removed the watering can and told them it was going away and couldn't be used in baths any more. For that age, they won't really remember it though, so a firm "no" and taking him out of the bath immediately is far more effective.