I think I am feeling a bit needlessly stressed. I am sure this is probably just toddlerhood beginning (DS 13 months) but I have no point of reference, so is the following normal/ok?
I know he understands the word "gentle" with regard to touching the cat, (or he seemed to) however recently his reaction to being told "gently" is to start hitting the cat/me/other child. Whenever he sees the cat he gets wildly overexcited and HAS TO grab his tail. If he is prevented from doing this he cries and does the board/back arching thing almost like a mini tantrum. If he is allowed anywhere near the cat he grabs chunks of fur and flesh or his face and will lean on him putting his whole weight on him. He used to be much more gentle and would either stroke him or poke at his ears/whiskers, which I tried to discourage. The cat is quite placid and didn't mind this but now DS is so rough I have to keep them separated.
Anything he is not allowed to touch (something out of reach etc) he will reach for and cry and do the tantrum thing as well. He becomes obsessed with the forbidden thing and will not be distracted easily. He is especially obsessed with my laptop and will not play by himself if I am on it. We do our shopping and banking online and I buy a lot of his clothes etc from ebay so I quite often need to go on the computer. And of course MN .
He fights sleep and is difficult to put to bed in the evenings. Nothing seems to calm him down (he has been like this since birth) - any "calming" activity, bath, books, breastfeeding, lullabies, cuddling up together, being rocked in his pushchair - none of them work consistently and I can't get a "bedtime routine" going because none of the "calming" activities calm him down. He sometimes is still up by the time we go to bed and he will climb and crawl over us giggling madly and then just suddenly crawl into his cot or ask to nurse and go to sleep. (It's quite cute really) - I don't mind this but he is obviously tired in the evenings so I am constantly picking him up when he has fallen over and trying to calm him down - tonight I got him to sleep by breastfeeding him in a rocking chair until he fell asleep and then carrying him up to his cot. I am happy to do this if he needs it but it doesn't seem to work unless he is very tired. I don't want to do any form of sleep training involving leaving to cry. I understand the arguments for it, it's just not for me.
Oh and he still wants to breastfeed quite a lot in the daytime and I feel selfconscious about doing it when we are with friends etc. I don't want to stop though, maybe this is more of an issue with me than him.
Sorry for the long post. Hope this isn't too much of a moan