I am the shouty mother from hell. Advice needed, please (desperate)

[queribus]

I think my throat is sore from shouting so much this afternoon. My DCs are 5 and 2, and the 2 yo (DS) has been a monster this evening. When I picked him up from nursery his keyworker said in a jokey voice that he'd been a handful today and very "mischievious", but I think he'd been a pain really. Since we got hoe, he's been dreadful - tantrums, shouting, trying to slam doors, throwing toys. And now he won't go to bed (in toddler bed - he can climb out of his cot).

It seems that on his second bithday a switch tripped and my lovely, funny, boisterous little boy was replaced by a stroppy, whiney, tantrumming nightmare.

My parenting skills must be crap, but my only response is to shout and shout. Obviously, he takes no notice (although it does make him cry . I just seem to in a downward spiral which I can't get out. Clearly, the more I shout the worse it becomes, but nothing works. I've tried ignoring, reward charts, talking calmly.

Please help. I feel so guilty and sad. My DCs can't enojoy being with me and I'm beginning to feel really terrible about ruining their childhood with all the shouting. Any advice gratefully received.

Re the staying in bed problems. When my twins moved into beds around the same age, they would mess around for hours. It drove me mad, especially after a long day.

So we put a stairgate on their bedroom door (we needed to anyway as we lived in a 2 bed cottage, where both bedrooms came out onto a small landing and a steep flight of stairs - so if they'd wandered out in the night it would have been v.dangerous).

I would sit by the stairgate for a while telling them to go back to bed and sometimes one of them would sit by the stairgate too until they fell asleep on the floor - at which point we would scoop them back into bed.

We took out all the toys at nighttime, so there literally was just their beds and favourite cuddly each. They were doing it to get a reaction, so us eventually saying good night and going downstairs meant they lost interest as their reaction had gone. Maybe worth a try?

DC3 is the same age as your toddler and she drives me mad at times - I do lots of counting to 10 and get out of the house as much as possible with her! It's often also that she's hungry (even when she's eaten a lot already that day) or tired (even when she's had a good nap). I think they go through a big growth spurt and development spurt around that age and they are incredibly frustrated which makes them so cross and cranky..

It did start to pass with my older girls once they could talk more and do more themselves - by 3 or even 2.5 they were loads better.

1-2-3 Magic course helping us lots with our toddlers. Free 3 evening course run by the local council/Health visitors or get the book. It's American but excellent (and very amusing and insightful). Great ideas to prevent me screaming like a fishwife.
( eg. Making getting dressed/ exiting house a game by setting kitchen timer and saying 'quick kids we've got to go before the bell goes off!'. They love a challenge.
Good luck though. It's so hard sometimes.

I like the kitchen timer idea - they're both very competitive so that might work.

Reward chart is a great big failure - DH is still convinced it will work - there are so many black marks on there it's ridiculous. And of course DS has no clue what's going on when DH takes him to the kitchen to draw another cross on the piece of paper!

Stayed in bed so far though.