Behavoiur of almost 3 year old.

[Alibongo33]

Looking for some advice please. My nearly 3 year old in January's behaviour is getting worse. She hits me, answers back all the time and generally throws herself about.
I have tried naughty step/time out but she just hits/scratches, completes the time and nothing changes, I have tried shouting, ignoring bad behaviour etc today she throw something at me that cut my lip, I cried so much, I am failing, I didn't know what to do so I put her in her cot and closed the door.
She is all sweetness and light for dh who is home 1 hour before bath and bed.
Please help.

Does she still have a nap? I'm asking because it sounds like she could be overtired. What is her diet like? Has she has any illnesses or changes to her life?

The only thing I can suggest really is to decide how you are going to deal with poor behaviour and stick to it. It's usually best to decide on a plan of action when she's not around rather than wait until she has done something you don't like.

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Alibongo you are NOT failing. Whoever coined the phrase 'terrible twos' hadn't had a 3yo yet. We called ours a threenager. I'm not sure if 3yos are teenagers in training or teenagers are regressing to 3yos, but either way I know we (and not just us) found the 3ish-4ish phase extremely challenging. My DD1 had me in tears more than once and I'm not that way inclined.

Another mum of a slightly older child said once in response to my hair-tearing "Ah, yes, 3, the fight for independence and identity'. I've no idea if there's any developmental evidence that that's the case, but it chimed with me at the time.

We didn't do time out anyway because it never felt right for us (full disclosure - we're at the hippy end of the parenting scale) but also because I wasn't entirely sure what it was going to achieve other than an escalation of a situation already rapidly deteriorating into postal tantrum territory.

This isn't advice - what the hell do I know about anyone else's situation? - but this is a list of stuff that worked well enough, enough times, to pass it on. Some of it required monumental amounts of patience and restraint to follow through. Sometimes I still lost it and yelled or made stupid threats. Anyway...

1. I'd try to work out if something was changing for her that I had under-estimated, eg learning new stuff, changes in childcare setting, and if so to talk about it
2. Change the semantics: "Shall we do it together" rather than "can I/would you like help?" "That came out rude, could you try that again" rather than eg "well not if you ask like that"
3. Buckets of empathy (like I said, big hippy ;-) "I can see how angry you are about that", "that must be so frustrating" blah blah blah but also with a 'how can we get we get rid of that feeling? Do you want to run around the house yelling? Beat the sh*t out of the sofa cushions?' That last one worked really well with DD1 and she'd end up giggling in a heap. Though she does have a great sense of humour that has saved us from throttling each other many times.
4. With physical stuff I'd do a 'I'm going to put you here (usually sofa/bed) because it's never OK to hurt people deliberately, including me. If there's something you want to talk about come and find me' and then walk out to another room.

What I absolutely hated about all this, and so I really feel for you, is that when I was on form - patience, humour, more patience - we always had better days. When I was extra tired, hormonal, stressed or just in a tetchy mood, we'd have crappy days that deteriorated really quickly. But then I'd turn it around to a 'OK, so I can't control her mood but I can control how I respond to it. And on those days I can't control my mood I need to at least model how to apologise afterwards and she'll see I have my limits and how to put it right afterwards. Max positive spin to stop myself walking out without a backwards glance. We also went out a lot, and tried to avoid deadlines as much as possible. I found everyone's mood improved massively once we were outside.

Is there anything that particularly regularly triggers the behaviour?

Alibongo you are NOT failing. Whoever coined the phrase 'terrible twos' hadn't had a 3yo yet. We called ours a threenager. I'm not sure if 3yos are teenagers in training or teenagers are regressing to 3yos, but either way I know we (and not just us) found the 3ish-4ish phase extremely challenging. My DD1 had me in tears more than once and I'm not that way inclined.

Another mum of a slightly older child said once in response to my hair-tearing "Ah, yes, 3, the fight for independence and identity'. I've no idea if there's any developmental evidence that that's the case, but it chimed with me at the time.

We didn't do time out anyway because it never felt right for us (full disclosure - we're at the hippy end of the parenting scale) but also because I wasn't entirely sure what it was going to achieve other than an escalation of a situation already rapidly deteriorating into postal tantrum territory.

This isn't advice - what the hell do I know about anyone else's situation? - but this is a list of stuff that worked well enough, enough times, to pass it on. Some of it required monumental amounts of patience and restraint to follow through. Sometimes I still lost it and yelled or made stupid threats. Anyway...

1. I'd try to work out if something was changing for her that I had under-estimated, eg learning new stuff, changes in childcare setting, and if so to talk about it
2. Change the semantics: "Shall we do it together" rather than "can I/would you like help?" "That came out rude, could you try that again" rather than eg "well not if you ask like that"
3. Buckets of empathy (like I said, big hippy ;-) "I can see how angry you are about that", "that must be so frustrating" blah blah blah but also with a 'how can we get we get rid of that feeling? Do you want to run around the house yelling? Beat the sh*t out of the sofa cushions?' That last one worked really well with DD1 and she'd end up giggling in a heap. Though she does have a great sense of humour that has saved us from throttling each other many times.
4. With physical stuff I'd do a 'I'm going to put you here (usually sofa/bed) because it's never OK to hurt people deliberately, including me. If there's something you want to talk about come and find me' and then walk out to another room.

What I absolutely hated about all this, and so I really feel for you, is that when I was on form - patience, humour, more patience - we always had better days. When I was extra tired, hormonal, stressed or just in a tetchy mood, we'd have crappy days that deteriorated really quickly. But then I'd turn it around to a 'OK, so I can't control her mood but I can control how I respond to it. And on those days I can't control my mood I need to at least model how to apologise afterwards and she'll see I have my limits and how to put it right afterwards. Max positive spin to stop myself walking out without a backwards glance. We also went out a lot, and tried to avoid deadlines as much as possible. I found everyone's mood improved massively once we were outside.

Is there anything that particularly regularly triggers the behaviour?

Sorry for double post - stupid intermittent wifi.

Lovely post mij

There totally is a developmental stage at around 2/3. It is when the child learns other people have thoughts and feelings.. The techno term is theory of mind.
Until now they really thought the world resolved around them. It must be devastating for them.

I would suggest you pick one battle at a time. Hitting you. Not acceptable at all. When she does it, insist she appologise and if not then cot to calm down. Or (I often do this) strapped into the pushchair and we walk until I am calm.

You are totally not failing. Children are REALLY hard!

Kxx

My ds is 3 in December I feel your pain we have a monster on our hands too and nothing helps

Yes yes and yes. My 3yo was a demon from 2.5. Everything was a battle. I'd be exhausted by the end of the day.
I started to pick my battles. Ask myself "is it really important that he wears the blue coat?" That helped a lot.
I also had to take deep breaths, count to 20, leave the room on many occasions.
And I found trying to find the funny side helped too, DS rolling around the floor giving an Oscar-worthy performance refusing dinner/shoes on/coat off/everything.

He has actually got a little better since turning 3 but most days we have at least one meltdown.

I'm stringent about naps. No bending on that. When he's tired it's a million times worse.