How on earth do you start to enforce boundaries & some sort of vague discipline? 10 months too early or not? HELP...

[WanderingWanderer]

Hello all - I am new to mumsent and I hope someone can help. Up until a week or two ago we had an absolute angel of a baby - very happy little boy, ate and slept brilliantly -I definitely have had an easy 10 months. Now it is clearly payback time and our angel has suddently sprouted horns
He has started crawling and is constantly on the go. He screams if he cannot have something out of his reach. He screams if you won't give him something he wants. He screams in his highchair and refuses all but the bare minimum of food. He won't lie still to be changed, and screams a lot then as well. Don't get me wrong there are still smiles too, but this incessant high pitched screaming is seriously wearing me out. Is this normal behaviour, or just par for the course and something I accept and hope he grows out of? Or do I need to start applying any sort of saying 'no' or discipline more firmly? Or do I continue to distract him as I am doing now (with mixed success). I just feel very clueless, and could really use some help.

mumsnet obviously not mumsent...sorry

get the book 'the social toddler'. it is excellent for the toddler years.

maybe he is teething sounds like he is in pain or fed up my ds is 17months and only ever does that when he is ill or teething, dd did the same she is 4 and a half now. 10 months is too early in my opinion to discipline but you can still firmly say no and mummy doesnt like that ect ect

i'm a bit like this with my 10 month old. now she's crawling she wants to grab everything, and will not sit still at all or lay still for nappy change.

what seems to be working here is just being very consistent. moving her away from things, or preventing her from being able to get at things. so for example, locking cupboards, and we've got a new tv stand so she can't grab any electrical bits etc. they don't understand 'no' until something like 18 months old. so right now it's more about tone of voice, consistency, not laughing when she does things etc.

as for nappy changes, i just clamp her between my knees basically, keep one hand on her tummy and just keep turning her back over and don't respond to her screeching. i know she's ok, she just doesn't want to be still when there's so much to explore.

sometimes it's like they'll do things just to get you to say no. they like the response from you, so it's just a case of distract, don't rise to it, and remove of protect any dangerous things.

hth!

oh yes, ditto social toddler book. that's great!

Mine is like this! I figure she is just figuring out that she is a person with her own mind - hence the crying when I don't let her have what she wants.
I am also pretty sure she said "no" to me the other day!

I don't say no to her because I don't want her to come back to me with it all of the time. But I do stop her doing anything dangerous. There's no attention or discussion, I just pick her up and move her, then distract her with something else. Personally I don't really see the point of trying to discipline her at the moment, she is too little and has no memory as far as I can tell. It's more a case of trying to keep her alive and unhurt!