Whining 3.5 year old. How do I make it stop?

[JoshandJamie]

My son has entered a new world of whining. He seems incapable of asking for anything without whining for it. So instead of: mum, can I please have some juice? I get 'I waaaaaaaaaant soooooooome juuuuuuiiiice.' in the most irritating whinging, whining voice. It is driving me insane.

Having asked him countless times to use his nice voice (and showing him what I mean by a nice voice) it has still had no effect. I've tried rewarding and lots of attention for nice asking. I've tried ignoring and even putting him on the step for time out - telling him he can come back and ask nicely when he's ready - but all I get is: I dooon't waaaaaaaaant toooooooo - in the whining voice.

Is this a phase? Please - for the love of god - tell me it is. Any successful methods to stop the whinge? It's getting to the point where I almost despise my own son because he sounds so horrible. help

i can't abide whinging. no normal voice no response here. works eventually. doing things like naughty step emphasises that it gets to you thus making it worse i reckon.

i find telling rather than asking works better to underline stuff i really will not stand for.

stuff for which i really will not stand??

Pretend you cant hear unless asked in a normal voice.

much the same here, they don't get what they want until they ask for it 'properly' my dd used to be a terrible whinger (sp?) but now she only really does it if she's tired or ds is really driving her mad and she can't sort it out herself ! She's 5.

I agree on the ignoring but this is what happens - here's an example. DS wanted juice on Saturday. Whinge. I said: ask in a nice voice, or you don't get anything. Whinge continued. So I ignored.

Whinge escalated and escalated. I ignored and ignored. I continued to wash the dishes while DS hung off my trousers, pulling on me, trying to push me away from the sink. I reminded him again - use your nice voice or you don't get anything.

Whinge continued escalating to full blown tantrum and eventually hysteria. It lasted approximately an hour. When he gets to this point nothing will calm him down other than being cuddled because he is beside himself and is incapable of calming himself down - but the problem was that he was obviously still not useing a nice voice to ask for cuddles. I eventually got him to stammer out that he wants a cuddle, instead of screaming/whinging it.

I gave him a cuddle and explained calmly that he needs to use his nice voice and not whine for something and that mummy only understands a nice voice. He finally calmed down but the next time he asked for something (about 30 mins later), it once again came out as a whinge. I reminded him about using the nice voice and this time I got a folded arms, stomp off saying: I don't want to.

So I ignored. But it's like this for every little thing. sigh