Advise on dealing with the Whingy/Sensitive Toddler

[Buddhababe]

Hi

I am back looking for advise from any mums out there who have a very sensitive toddler.

My DS is nearly 2 and is a great little boy but he is highly sensitive and moans ALOT about everything and anything which i find quite grating. I recently had another baby and although I have done my utmost to include him in all things, I am finding I am less tolerant and feeling more and more frustrated with his behaviour. I am a stay at home mum and have spent endless hours with him playing , bringing him to classes e.t.c. but it seems it has been for nothing (thats how i feel today anyway.....)

He does not seem to be happy at all.I started him in a nursery also a few months ago for a couple of days a week to get him more involved with other children and he has still not settled. If he is like this at home, he must be like this in there and I fear this will make him worse!

Does anyone have any advise on how to cope and encourage him to be a more content individual. thanks

Bumping for you! I have a huge amount of sympathy for you. My ds is only 13 months but is stll very whingy/ whiney/ tantrummy. I suspect this is just his personality and he'll be similar to your ds when he's older.

Was he a difficult baby? I know how you feel, I take my ds to mother and toddler play groups twice a week and sometimes he whines and cries so much I wonder why I bother. It must be so hard for you with another baby too.

Hopefully someone will have some advice soon!

Hello, my dd was like this. She is nearly 5 now. It took her months to settle at her pre-school and everybody elses child loved it straight away. I nearly took her out as it was more difficult taking her than it would have been not to take her. Eventually she did start to accept it and then to like it and then she started moaning on the days she wasn't going!

She is going to school this week and I doubt if she will settle there for ages too.

The moaning thing is a pain. It drove me up the wall as I too felt like I was taking her to all of these lovely things and she was moaning away. I think that my dd got into the habit of speaking like that. It became her 'normal' way of talking. Everytime she did it I just said 'say it in your normal voice' or 'happy voice' and eventually she stopped. One of my friends sons ONLY ever speaks in a whingey voice and she has not seemed to have noticed at all. It has become the way he talks.

With coping, what seemed to work for me was to see it as a phase which I could help her get out of by teaching her. Not putting up with her negativity and leaping joyously on anything she said which wasn't a moan.

She is fine now - you are not alone!

Nearly 2 yrs old - still a baby really. Are your expectations of his behaviour too high?

I had a very similiar situation. DD1 was 22 months when DD2 was born. Always a lovely, happy girl but got very clingy, whingey, weird about other kids - where she wasn't at all before. She appeared to love the baby though.

It lasted about 3 months and then - I don't know, she just got over it. It was all about the new baby. It was her way of coping with the massive change in her life. I thought she might show jealousy towards the baby but it wasn't really like that - she just got more senstive than she already was. Baby is now 4 months and she is much better. Great actually. We didn't do anything to be honest, she just adjusted.

Might not help you as such, but just wanted to share my experience.

I have to agree with savoycabbage. My daughter just turned 2 last month and she has taken to being very whingey and sensitive about everything. I understand the sensitivity because I'm the same way (watching her encourages me to be a bit less, though). I have no doubt she'll be a very empathetic adult. But I'm trying to remind her that whining is not allowed and to say, "Help, Mommy." or "no, thank you". Or anything that communicates with words the reason for her whines. I know it's a stage and that it is 100% my job and responsibility to teach her how to communicate correctly so she doesn't become a whiney 5, 10 or 30 year old.