Our DD is 2 in a couple of weeks and over the last couple of months we have definitely seen the tantrums and strops increase. She feels all of her emotions very strongly, so when she is happy she is an absolute delight, but when she is stroppy she is so hard work. She has been strong willed since the day she was born!
On the whole, it is manageable at the moment but I guess it will probably get worse before it gets better so I wanted to get some tips and see if our approach sounds good.
Generally, I do try to pick my battles. So, this morning she really wanted to go to nursery in her wellies. I thought it wasn't really worth the fight, so just let her and popped her normal shoes in her nursery bag for later on. But I do also make sure that no means no so once I say no (even if I later regret saying no!) then no matter how much she strops she won't get it.
I try and use giving her options to make our lives easier. So she went through a stage of having a strop when I held her hand near the road. Now I give her the choice to walk holding my hand or go in her push chair and she will usually walk happily holding my hand and then ask to go in her pushchair when her legs get tired. There are some non-negotiables as well - so she has to sit in her chair for mealtimes, when we want to get somewhere she has to go in her car seat/push chair regardless of how much she screams.
Sometimes I find she is asking for something I am perfectly happy for her to have/to do but rather than asking she starts either whinging or even tantrumming immediately. In those instances I say to her she will have to calm down and ask nicely. If she does then she can have it, but if the whinging/tamtrumming continues then she cannot.
If she does something I don't want her to do then I remove her from the situation and explain why she shouldn't do it. So yesterday she hit me on the head quite hard with a book - I took the book off of her and sat her down and said "no hitting". She had a bit of a strop but once she calmed down I explained that hitting hurt people and wasn't a kind thing to do and that if she had wanted me to read the book she should just ask nicely. I asked her if she wanted to say sorry for hurting mummy and she did, then we had a cuddle. I haven't introduced a "time out" yet. I don't think she would really get it - I think it would just lead to a full on tantrum and remove my opportunity to quickly explain why she shouldn't do it. I can reassess this if needs be - at the moment she only very rarely does the hitting/pushing behaviour and usually it is out of over-excitement rather than anger.
Sorry for the long message, but does this approach sound sensible? Am I being too soft? Also, how quickly will she adapt to different approaches from different approaches. Me and DH do discuss stuff and try and be consistent, but because he is with her less I do think he is a bit less consistent and maybe less good at assessing situations and dealing with them quickly. Will she just learn that we are different and adapt to that? I kind of hope so, because the only alternative seems to keep getting at him to be more consistent, and I hate criticising his parenting - it feels so undermining.