First 'tantrum' @ 12 mths - did I do the right thing ?

[Cathy1]

My dd is 12 months and last night was my first experience of what I think was a tantrum ! We had filled the bath and I brought her into her room to get undressed. She was happy. She found a wet wipe on the floor and started 'wiping' the floor with it which is something she enjoys doing.
After a couple of mins I lifted her up to get undressed and she threw a huge fit, screaming, wriggling, red face, really upset. I knew it was because she wanted to keep wiping the floor. She isn't ever like this if we lift her up when she's playing with toys etc. So I put her on the changing table and showed her how to 'wipe' that too....a few mins later she calmed and got busy cleaning the table! I undressed her while she was doing this. When I lifted her into the bathroom she screamed blue murder again and was so upset the whole way through the bath (which she usually loves)despite showing her all her fav bath toys. I didn't know what to do for the best really.
I kept on going and washing her, trying to ignore the 'tantrum'. She continued the crying and screaming right through the bath, drying and dressing and only really calmed when we went downstairs for her bottle (where she had a quick 'wipe' of the kitchen floor as I was warming it !). Basically I want to
know what others would have done in this kind of situation ? Would you have skipped the bath and let her do what she wants to do ? I felt that would be 'giving in'. I didn't get cross but kept calm but wasn't sure if I should just leave her alone to get over it or to continue on as normal with what I was doing with her (which is what I did despite her screams).
And, she is only just gone 1 so is obviously too young to really know what she is doing which is why I really felt stumped and didn't know how to behave myself ! Any advice ?

Oh yes, broken food! Remember mega one too about a broken curly wurly. Amazing isn't it!

Oh dear, I can't stop laughing thinking about all these tantrums over 'broken food'! We had a major tantrum on Christmas Day; we were at bil's with 15 people and ds was at the head of the table (not my idea!) and blowing his stack because part of the crust of his mini apple pie had broken off and he wouldn't be satisfied until he had another 'whole one'!

Hi thanks for all your advice - I have been using it and it has been working, mostly. I'm finding it tough to handle these little tantrums or strops or whatever you'd call them. This morning she wouldn't let go of her toothbrush. Went into a huge panic/crying/wriggling when I tried to take it. So I waited and said 'ta ta' to try and take it, and tried to distract her to do something else - none of which worked. And we had to leave to get to creche / work (I wasn't in a rush but couldn't afford to wait 20 mins till she was finished playing with the brush). In the end I had to prise it from her and carry her sreaming to another room and eventually I used a soother to calm her down. (She normally only takes a soother at sleep time). Can anybody recommend a book that deals with these issues, a child starting to show their own will and be independant and ways to deal with it. She's nearly 13 months now so I know this is just the beginning ..... I've a lot to learn ! Maybe I should be delighted she wants to 'brush' her teeth so much !

The Social Toddler is a very good one in my opinion. Very child centred but practical in approach. You can buy in online or in bookshops. It's published by The Children's Project. Personally, I would have let her take her brush with her. Mind you, my ds has started to love walking in the street outside our house - he tries to follow anyone out which sometimes leads to tears of frustration which I just have to jolly and tickle him out of. I'm also making an effort to take him out more and now we always (as long as it's not raining) go out for our 'evening constitional' walk down the street to meet dada at 6pm.

My 15 month dd can be little miss strop-a-lot over pretty much anything (the cat leaving the room, her rings not standing on their ends...). But I'm a fairly stroppy person too so I know where she gets it from. Worst of all she will only rarely be distracted.

Like Aloha, I would have let her take her brush to creche. In fact dd regularly takes all kinds of stuff all over the place for precisely that reason. This does tend to mean a lot of strange things in the car, frequent repurchasing of teaspoons, the embarrassing dropping of glass jars in the supermarket, and occasionnally half-eaten leaflets. There are somethings I won't let her have (car keys etc) in the first place because the strop then will generally be less than a strop later when you try and take it off her. Thankfully she rarely bares a grudge for longer than half an hour (we'll draw a veil over the 4 hour screaming car journey from Leeds at Christmas).

Would love to have the perfect aloha-ds relationship but I don't think that's happening any time soon in our house (laughed at the 'ooh trees' distraction technique - have tried this many times with gradually less and less effect. These days she doesn't even bother looking at me in full strop, even if I am jumping up and down and singing!). Ignoring the yells and doing something 'fun' with her toys/books and not letting her join in until she stops shrieking tends to work the best with us we've found.

We've definitely found the true nightmare times have been tied in to developmental changes, so you'll probably find a difference once she makes a big breakthrough.

Oh dear, that is a bad picture of dd, isn't it? When she is good, she is very very good, but when she is bad she is horrid! Thank goodness for big hugs.