At what age do you start thinking about behaviour?

[walthamwanderer]

Looking for some advice and opinions please. I'll try to be as concise as possible.
I'm a first time mum and my 4m old DD is mostly lovely but when she's wanting something (a bottle or someone to pick her up) it's like it has to be immediate or she starts screaming/ shouting like a really spoilt child. I know she's still so young but it's the exact behaviour that I hate in older children. So what I'm asking really is at what age you start to address this. 1yr? 18 months? Is there anything I can do now? She's likely to be an only child (for fertility reasons) so I don't want this on top of that. I hope I made sense.

No there is nothing you can do to teach a 4 month old how to behave... mine's 18 months and if she's misbehaving I direct her with something else. They're too young to understand consequences and the like.

A baby is reacting to their instincts, not being spoilt. Even at 2/3/4 a hungry or overtired child will behave on instinct and impulse. By school age most children can overcome this to an extent -Take turns, wait, cope with delayed reward. In the meantime you reinforce manners and gradually teach that there is sometimes a need to wait.

At 4 months old, when your baby is hungry the only way she can communicate that to you is by screaming/shouting. Of course she has no concept of waiting... she has no concept of time.

A four month old does not have the mental capacity to understand behaviour. At that age they are entirely instinct driven - they want comfort, sleep, a clean bottom, food, warmth, stimulation etc and they will yell if they don't have it! This isn't naughty, its their innate survival instincts. They cannot manipulate you, or deliberately play you up. You cannot spoil a small baby.

Have a read up on child brain development. The Wonder Weeks app also shows you when your child is going through a development leap and explains them (you're likely to have a more grumpy, fussy baby during these periods).

I started redirecting/distracting at around 18 months. My DD has just turned two, and she now gets a firm 'no' or 'stop' when she's doing something I don't like. She's only just at an age now where I consider her mentally able to make a decision to do something that I've asked her not to (like 'please don't touch that' and she does) so she gets told off if she dos things like that. She's still not of an age where she can independently regulate her emotions, and as such, control her reactions.