4.5yo DD crying and stropping

[jessia]

OK, so browsing through Behaviour/development, this seems to be fairly recurrent, but our DD2's behaviour is really getting us down. She used to be such a jolly, helpful little thing (and at preschool still is) but at home she is really moody, clingy, grumpy, stroppy and tearful. She snaps in and out of these moods so fast, but boy when she's in them the rest of the house is paralysed because we can't hear ourselves think.
Classic symptoms are: suddenly turning on the "But I'm too tired" whine/tears when asked to help. We try and ignore/be firm but when DD1 is doing all the work or we can't get on with something as a family until her share is done, we're a bit stymied.
Not letting DH do anything for her/even talk to her on occasion. We try the tactic "Mummy can't hear you so Daddy will help" but that usually just leads to meltdown.
Simply drowning everything out with howling/wailing if she doesn't get her own way. We don't give in and try to remain calm and use the "broken record" tactic but sometimes I lose my cool after about 40 mins of this...
I get the feeling she is realising her place in the pecking order and doesn't really like it. Obviously we try to be fair and accommodating where possible but we do stress to both girls that there are 4 of us and sometimes they can't have what they want right when they want it (always try to be clear on when/if they will get it).
We also try to stress asking for things nicely and withhold what it is until we get a half-decent tone of voice and a "please" but this again can drag things out to infinity with DD2.
I also think she's realising how limited her leverage is (e.g. playing the drama queen won't get her a day off preschool or stop mummy going out to rehearsal) and she feels a bit insecure, but my aim is to show her that none of this is the end of the world and there is always a coming back with cuddles and kisses after a going away.

OK, so this is all, normal, boring, run-of-the-mill, "this-too-will-pass" stuff, right? I just hate to see my little chirpy sparrow so unhappy and being a PITA

Sounds like you are doing everything right so my only advice would be to persevere! Our DS2 went through a bit of an anti-DH phase, so we tried to get DH and DS2 together more often to do fun stuff, eg I'd take DS1 out (which also gave me and DS1 a break from the whingeing!) and DH would do something with DS2. Might be worth a go? I think it was also a pecking order thing with our DCs, DS2 maybe felt aware that he was the youngest, so giving him a chance to do stuff one-to-one was good.

Blimey, and there was me just thinking it was my DD. We've been having a nightmare the last couple of weeks. She goes from calm to wailing, air raid siren like, at the drop of a hat. Huge drama, massive tears, ear splitting yelling!

I had just got over the hell that was the 3yr old, now I have this!

I think it is to do with the fact that DS has just started crawling and is beginning to make more of an impact on her, so this fits in with the pecking otder thing like you.

It such hard work sometimes isn't it! At least we know we aren't alone in this.

We are trying to remember how we speak to her, it is very easy to get into a negative spiral with her, keep things calm and give her as much attention, if not more, than DS. We're also re-introducing the star chart/stickers for good behaviour. I hope it works!

Anyone else with advice for us out there?