Toddler and Twins - help !

[Hanna86]

I have twins who are almost 1 and a 3 year old. The twins are no bother really, happy little chappies. However obviously there are 2 of them, they are quite accident prone in their cruising and crawling adventures, and they need about 8 million nappy changes a day, so they are hard work.

DS (3) goes to nursery full time (and I still can't cope with him around the side of that 😞). He is impossible. I know its obviously a cry for attention, but I'm totally at the end of my rope with him. He needs to be watched like a hawk, he throw things constantly, he makes deliberate mess, hits, kicks, bites, ignores me, will not do anything I ask him to. Won't take any direction re potty etc (he's trained and has been a while but he ignores reminders and then of course accidents happen).

im at my wits end and feel like I've tried everything. I praise him like mad when he's good, I've tried bribes, time outs, removing privileges such as stories or tv when he's naughty. I've tried not to react and ignore bad behaviour (hard!) and I've tried showing displeasure v clearly (comes much more naturally!).

any tips from those with this dynamic? I think it's the twin factor that makes it so much worse as I have no spare hands or bandwidth to control situations before they get out of hand. I can't do a single thing for myself, such as brush my teeth before the nursery drop off or all hell breaks loose.

husband commutes so is never around at the beginning or end of the day. I'm going back to work fairly soon (and can't wait) but I can't see how on earth I can leave him with the nanny we have hired even during those short wrap around hours. She's going to quit within the first week at this rate. HELP 😨

Oh he's angelic at nursery apparently.

If he’s angelic and nursery he might be good for the nanny too.
How does manhandling him go? So if you tell him it’s time to do a wee on the potty and he ignores you, instead of asking again, can you just pick him up and put him on the potty? Does that work ok or does he fight you? I find my fairly stubborn preschooler reacts better when there aren’t too many choices. So I don’t say ´do you want to so a wee before we go out?’ I say ´First you’re going to do a wee, then we will put your shoes on, the we will go to the park’. I do give him choices about other things when I have time for the inevitable dilly dallying and either choice is acceptable to me. (Which tshirt would you like today, do you want an apple or a banana etc).
Have you got garden space or park space nearby where he can be loud and run and throw things? So instead of trying to ban him from throwing toys, you can give him a soft ball to throw in the garden, or get him to throw all the teddies in the basket.
If something like a cartoon will hold his attention I would have no qualms about making that a small part of the daily routine for a time when you need to not be chasing after anyone - half an hour while you make dinner or bathe the twins for example.
It’s so hard when they have bags of energy and no sense of danger and you have no energy plus other tiny ones to watch!

If you have a garden or patio something like a little bubble machine can be amazing. It would keep all three entertained and active but isn’t destructive or dangerous.
Do the twins worship big brother? Could he get some of attention he’s craving from his little brothers? Would he ´read’ stories to them for example?

Craving attention, u send him off to nursery so he feels pushed out, they soon learn how to get attention and negative attention is the easiest attention get. Sending him to nursery full time whilst u were at home made won’t have helped, most drop it to 2 days.
U need to ensure that u give them lots of attention and minimal attention for unwanted behaviour.

I would put the twins in childcare one day or a couple of mornings so you can do special quality time with your toddler

We have a very similar situation with 9 month old twins and 3 year old DS. He shows all the same behaviours you describe.

The only time I have noticed an improvement was over Easter when pre school closed for 3 weeks. First few days were hard (fair amount of children's tv put on to cope!) but after he realised I was no longer sending him out, he settled a lot. Happy playing with his own toys etc, rather than trying to pester the twins constantly. Made me realise he probably does feel jealous and needs to be at home more.
Also trying to arrange childcare for the twins (or dad at weekends) to ensure regular 1:1 time with him.
Good luck!

Thanks everyone, it's good to know I'm not alone! Although sorry others are struggling. I'm not going to change the childcare situation at this point as I'll soon be at work anyway, but in any case he's not in an 8-6 nursery, it's school hours so 9-15.45 (and term time only) and we chose it knowing we would get a nanny for the twins when I went back to work who could also do wrap around. So it's not as though he's shipped out an unreasonable amount, he eats 2/3 of his meals at home and gets half terms, Easter hols etc. In fact he's been at home a lot over the past month. So my feeling is it's the fact of the twins as much as the daycare situation. It is always by far the worst at times like meal times when I am quite occupied with the littler ones, so of course I know it's attention seeking. But there is only one of me! I have pms so maybe that's why I posted today, I feel like if I've slept and we have a reasonably good day, it's manageable. If I'm slightly below par for any reason it can be hellish. I will try and do more with him 1-1, its probably been the default that dh takes him whilst I take the twins, for obvious reasons. I will also attempt to let more of it wash over me and just grey rock the little blighter a bit more - the throwing things is quite often things that it doesn't actually matter about throwing (foamy balls or toys eg) or things into the bath... I find it unbelievably irritating but maybe I need to get in practice now for when there are 2 more of them doing it. I'm going to have a glass of wine.

Good luck to you too @eatyourveggies and it's reassuring that the same behaviours are happening elsewhere. Thank you

Solidarity, as I have a similar situation and my toddler is a menace as well.

@Skybluepinky im not sure where you get the idea that most people drop childcare to 2 days? Not anybody I know who can afford not to, certainly not people with twins! It depends on your personal assessment of the pros and cons of childcare, and what your child gets out of it. Personally I think my toddler is much happier doing structured activities with other children than being plonked in front of the tv for hours by his harangued mother. Even my friends who don't have twins second time have usually kept at least 4 days of nursery if they can.