Ready to admit I cant cope

[2monkeybums]

Ds1 (2.5) has always been hard work. I thought all babies were like that until Ds2 (1.1) came along.

Ds1 didn't sleep through the night until he was 16 months, was always a screamer, but quite a happy baby until he was around 6 months old and something changed. Since then he is a misery and everyone comments on his grumpy personality. If anyone tries to talk or play with him he gives them the death stare or shouts no!

He has woken up in a really bad mood every day for 2.5 years. He screams for at least an hour and its really hard to get him to eat breakfast, have his nappy changed, get dressed, just all the usual things you do in the morning. This means me & DH start every single day in a strained and bad mood. We never get to work on time.

He has also started hurting Ds2. He will not let him play with any toys (even his own ones) and is always pushing and hitting him and shouting no at him.

Me & Dh are feeling the effects of a very strained 2.5 years. We are beyond exhausted. We have both hoped he would grow out of this and be a happy boy but im starting to think this will never happen. We are all so miserable due to his moods and tantrums I fear we might break up if it continues.

Ds2 is an easy baby (thank god) but hardly gets any attention at all. People we know comment that Ds1 is like having two children on his own!

Sorry for the rant. I guess I just want to hear it will get better and that a miserable toddler can become a happy child or is this us for life...

Another strained morning with him demanding multiple breakfasts and eating none of them. Of him demanding my DH does everything for him and of him screaming 'no not Mummy' if I go near him or speak at all.

He gave up daytime napping around 5 months ago which has not helped his moods at all. He seems constantly tired. Its impossible to get him to sleep at all in the day, even after nursery. I cant make him sleep in the day can I?

He goes to bed by 7pm latest and gets up anywhere between 5am and 7am.

We have tried food just before bed and first thing in the morning to try and help the grumpy mood.

We are going with the ignore ignore ignore approach today. with lots of praise for good behaviour.

Thank you all so much for your help and suggestions.

Wish me luck.

Good luck. Re the breakfast thing - tomorrow morning you can introduce a 'rule', eg he can choose TWO things, then it stops. He'll get the chance to eat those two things he chose. If after 15 minutes he is not eating them, then down from the table and everything cleared away. Then ignore strops.

Consistency and NEVER giving in for an easy life are key here. But you have to introduce these little rules one by one and give him time to get used to them and realise you mean it. Yes it's fucking hard being supermum and always being consistent, but it's the ONLY way to make real change imo.

And yes to accompanying this with loads of attention, interaction and praise for the good things and appropriate behaviour.

schode are you me? .

We've had problems with DD not eating and demanding multiple different food in the past too. Now we serve the food and if she eats it she eats it, if she doesn't then we just eat ours and assume she's not hungry. She now eats far more than when we were coaxing her.

One thing you could try tomorrow is the alternative question trick "Darling would you like weetabix or toast today?", that way he feels like he is in control because he is choosing. I do this with lots of things, including getting DH to help out more .

As for his moods and tiredness, I think this could be a major part of the problem. I know lots of people will shoot me down in flames but I honestly think they are much better behaved if they nap in the day until they are at least around 3 and my DD still sometimes napped up until she went to school at 4, it was only occasionally and she still slept through.

No you can't make them nap but you can encourage. Have a read of Nap refusing on askdrsears and this book will help too.

As for the weekly shop, try to be kind to yourself. Do you have to take both of them? Could you do it online or in the evening when they are in bed or when you just have one of them? Also, any punishments need to be instant. He is far to young to comprehend that he has his car is taken from him at home because of something he did in the supermarket. If he was mine, I would have no problem with sticking him timeout in the middle of an aisle in the supermarket .

Do agree too though that you all seem to be in a negative rut and keeping calm, lots of praise for good things and positive attention are the way to proceed .

Consistency and NEVER giving in for an easy life are key here

Just reread your post and this made me smile. If DS ever threw himself on the floor in temper I would sometimes calmly say "DS has that EVER got you what you wanted" and he would stop, think about it and then get up and sulkily say "no Mummy*. Never, ever, ever give in to tantrums .

Yy about the consequences being immediate: just as important (or possibly even more so) that the positive stuff is instant as well at that age. Seriously, carry round some of his favourite things to play with or eat when he's behaving really well or responds well to a request or similar. Actually the edible stuff is easier as it's consumed therefore can't lead to a struggle later when it needs to be put away.

Agree about the car being taken away a lot later - won't be very effective at that age. You end up with two tantrums for the price of one!

Oh yes - add the praise and cuddles, tickles, fun stuff AS WELL as any treats, then gradually fade the treats as he associates all the praise etc with good things.

monkeybums. How are things going now? Can you have and put breakfast behind you? Can you sod the housework and plan something to do together, even if its only playing on the floor?

Thanks everyone.

I will get his hearing tested. I don't think it is this but it will be good to rule it out.

We do start with the alternative trick question. I do like him to feel he makes decisions but he just screams for the next thing shortly after. I am going to limit to two tomorrow and deal with the screaming, he has to learn.

I do think it would really help if he would nap so thats something to work on.

Im still a little unsure of how to deal with the hitting/pushing his brother. All morning so far he has been pushing him down, taking things off him and hitting him away. I understand why he does this now but I don't know how to deal with it? Naughty step does not work as he just sits there and doesn't seem to care or refuses to sit there which starts a massive screaming tantrum that can last hours - do I just need to deal with this for the greater good? Now you have pointed it out I cant believe I told him his car would be taken away at home! Taking his toys away does not really work either, it certainly hasn't made him hit him less. I guess I just need to encourage nice behaviour?

Ds2 is in having a nap so im having some one on one with Ds1 building towers. Yes, breakfast is done so time for some PMA. I just keep telling myself consistency is key over and over again...

Glad you are having some time together. If he does start screaming in the morning just stay firm and calm and just ignore. it is hard but they do learn. You can even just keep saying calming "You chose xx today, perhaps you can have yy tomorrow".

As for the hitting. I've not really got much experience of this so can't be all that helpful. Did the tips in the askdrsears link help at all? Have you tried the no hitting reward chart?

Don't worry about saying the *I'll take your toy away at home thing" either. A couple of times this year my DS has wound me up and I've made the most ridiculous threats that ended in us all laughing and talking about it, bit easier at age 8 though rather than age 2.

As for the time out and tantrums. If he doesn't want to sit where you put him and throws a hissy fit, stay calm, ignore, give the other DC lots of attention and when he has calmed down explain that he still has to do his time out for hitting DS2. If you told him that time out is the consequence of hitting, then let him not do the time out because he has the tantrum, he will not stop hitting any time soon. It is hard but he will realise that hitting means time and thats it, no ifs or buts and screaming the house down does not get him what he wants.

I only kind if read a couple of the messages after your initial post... I have pretty much no idea about anything ... Muddling through with 8 month old DD and feel like I've achieved loads just by keeping her alive . Have no idea what to do when she becomes an actual child. However, reason for post is that I hear that "playful parenting" book is pretty amazing & has like a million 5 star ratings on amazon. Might help!? Hang in there x

Lovely post Mrs

It's hard work but I would break it down and think about each element.

What behaviours do you want to see? Eg playing nicely with his brother. But what does that mean? What does it consist of? What parts of what you expect are reasonable for a 2.5 year old and what are not? I bet a 1.1 year old does a lot of grabbing, spoiling arrangements, interfering with games. Imo, a 2.5 yr-old and a 1.1 yr-old probably need virtually constant adult refereeing so that the younger one is stopped from being a constant annoyance and the older one is encouraged to be kind and share, but within reason.

To have a break from supervision, you would probably have to set them up with different activities, possibly even in different rooms. However this is not so easy as each will no doubt decide the other activity is preferable etc.

The other side of the coin - what behaviours do you dislike and not want to see? Eg pushing, hitting, snatching, general unkindness. Most of us see a 2.5 year-old as the baby and would possibly have lower expectations and would be less surprised to see this. But because you have a younger baby, is your DS1 being expected to be too grown up too soon?

However, having said that, you do need to discourage the behaviours you don't like. First you can try working out what generally causes them - can you avoid these things, at least some of the time? When you can't, think about what he gets out of behaving that way. Can you remove the benefit to him (ie he doesn't get to keep the toy he snatched, he doesn't get to have his baby brother removed from the acvtivity - he is removed instead)? Also, make sure there are lots of positives for him when he is behaving appropriately, as you've started doing already.

Ultimately though, it's all about close supervision and clear boundaries and consistency. Yes again I admit - it's a massive pain in the arse!

DS3 (2.6), is a little like this. He is full on from the minute he wakes. He does still have a nap in the afternoon, which is a blessed relief! He can scream until I think our ears will actually bleed over absolutely nothing.

What is working for us at the moment is stickers. The day is broken down in to small segments of time and he is rewarded with a sticker for eating breakfast, putti g his shoes on nicely etc. if he has been a little sod trying, then I simply say 'thats a shame that you weren't so good then ds as you can't have your sticker now and move on to the next thing.

It helps that he is very motivated by stickers and I have a page of stickers in every bag and every room in the house do the reward can be immediate.

Good luck OP, with DS3 I just looked at DH one day and said 'so terrible twos, not a myth then!'. It can be such hard work - bloody lucky they're cute!

I hope you've had a good day today! I know I'm coming to this late, but having been through this with my eldest (now 7), I can't agree with the ignore, ignore, ignore. As you found, he's better when he has attention - this doesn't mean you have to slavishly give in to his demands every minute, but I think you do need to constantly emphasise that he is loved. Constantly, 'you know, I don't like the way you're behaving right now, but I love you no matter what'. Lots of hugs, even if he's resistant try to persevere; lots of affection, physical and verbal when he's not misbehaving. Lots and lots and lots of positive reinforcement and try to use positive motivation rather than negative (instead of 'no blue car if you keep hitting', try 'if you behave in the supermarket, we'll play with your blue car when we get home'). And, believe me, you will fail - spectacularly! - at times, but, screaming failures notwithstanding, it really did work for us. If he is jealous of his brother - as my dd was of hers - it made a HUGE and immediate difference to make it clear to her that it was ok to have negative feelings towards him, to resent him, to think he was annoying. Of course hitting him was unacceptable, but just giving her permission to dislike him really improved things between them - almost as if, knowing she could say he was irritating, she didn't have to have a screaming fit about it.
And if he did suddenly change at six months, I really would get him checked out medically, just to make sure there isn't something underlying causing him pain. Especially get his ears/hearing checked.

My 3.4 yo sounds a bit like yours. I find it helps to be v specific about what I want re behaviour and to give him an alternative means of dealing with something instead of just screaming. Eg instead of pushing his 18m old sister away from his toys I say DS if you don't want to play with DD, you say to her I don't want to play DD. And I see him try it and then I say to DD, DS doesnkt want to play come to xyz etcetc. I also have close to sero tolerance of the screaming. If DS starts into serious screaming or is persistently bold wwith DD he goes out of the room "until he calms down" and frankly I don't care how long that takees cause the alternative is me losing my temper which just doesnkt help any of us.

Also, I absolutely leap to praise the slightest hint of the kind of behaviour I want to see and again I am specific, good sharing, that was v friendly of you to xyz or I mention how we're all having such a nice time or fun etc. And I mean leap, even if it is just him stopping screaming and looking as if he's thinking about whether to continue or not, I go well done for not screaming, no one likes that etc etc.

It all helps but it's bloody hard work and if you're not in the best of form it's easy for thee day to get out of control. Sometimesd I find there's one big confrontsation early on and once that's dealt with, the rest of the day is ok. Sometimes I have put him to bed, luckily he's a sleep trojan.

It has got a lot better, but he is still fairly high maintenance. His DD is v easygoing tk gd.I try to be as positive as I can with him, not hold a grudge, take it personally, stay calm.

It does get better, be consistent etc etc. Good luck!

Just wanted to give a quick update...
Have spent the last (nearly) two months leading by example and giving lots of praise and I don't know if its that or that something has just clicked but we have just enjoyed the best week ever with Ds1.
He is being very upbeat, lots of fun and we can reason with him all of a sudden. Everyone has noticed his jolly mood and we are thrilled for him and us! Lets hope it continues.

Fake a good mood, have lots of fun in the house and don't pander to his mood. He is using it to manipulate you all.

ah well done!

What a nice update, hope it continues for you.

Well done! I have a 2.5 year old and know how very hard it is to keep up the positives all the time. Sounds like your DS is really benefitting from everything you're doing and will hopefully continue to develop as a happy little boy. All the best.