Need help

[certainlynotsusan]

I desperately need advice about my twins (2).

Being told off is hilarious.

No means "do that more"

Grown up angry is oh so funny

Naughty steps are hilarious

They beat up their big brother (4.5)

I just don't know where I've gone wrong or how to move forward. Please help.

Oh that's hard. Mine are 22 months and often ignore me, frankly, or laugh.

I don't know what the answer is, but I suspect consistency is key. If you're doing time out, do it consistently, even if it doesn't seem to be working at first. With my first we ended up having to sit with him in the corner as otherwise he'd just move, and we would have an endless cycle of us putting him back which got us nowhere. His behaviour would just escalate.

So I'd say, of the things you've tried so far, pick one and stick with it. The corner / time out should be really boring for them, so pick your spot carefully if you do that. They're maybe too young to have toys or privileges taken away from them just yet (though we take things away from ours if they're fighting over something, risky if we didn't see who started it)

Massive hugs. I remember it well. My twins are 5, nearly 6.

I think it's went they know your outnumbered and can smell your fear.

Yep it's about being constistant, but it's so so difficult with twins, I have 4 in total, my eldest has special needs, and so much of my attention was on him that I think that didn't help. Even now I have to supervise them, in the 5-10 minutes they go to brush their teeth, or one of us isn't there they can destroy their bathroom, their room is destroyed daily.

We actually down sized out house because it was so hard to supervise them and although it's helps in some ways didn't really solve the issues.

However, it does get easier and I'm sure you are sick of hearing that, I honestly wanted to stab people in the eye with a pencil when they said that.

It's also about time out for you, I don't get that, maybe twice a year, but it's helps so much.

I am trying my very hardest to be consistent. I can't sit with them on a naughty step to make them stay there because that means leaving whoever they've just clubbed howling and unconsoled to lavish attention on the party who was misbehaving.

Our house is entirely open plan downstairs. The time out step/naughty step/step is the bottom step of the stairs just in front of the stairgate as there are no toys in the hallway.

Today's naptime for example, they're handing each other their favourite toys and then howling at the top of their lungs until I go in and give them back to their owners (they both have 7 teddies in their cots - I know ideally I'd reduce this to 1 or 2 but they would absolutely protest for days!

We took the sides off the cots and they went so crazy that we put them back on. One has climbed out once and I'm dreading if he does it again because we will have to try again to take the sides off.

They can be lovely gorgeous little fellas but when they get their mischief on they are just crazy!

There is no time out for us. We've not had a meal or evening out, just the two of us, since my eldest was born.

Something with the kids has always got in the way (suddenly trickier evenings etc) and we aren't awash with volunteers (although I do know that a lot of the staff at the nursery they attend do do babysitting on the side).

It really is just a case of trying to survive at the moment!