My DD will be 4 in the summer. She's always been 'high needs', 'spirited' whatever you want to call it. However as she's aging obviously her behaviour is becoming more complex and I feel like I have no idea how to deal with it sometimes. Nothing I try really seems to have any positive outcome. So I'm just interested to hear what other people would do. Some of the many many many massive meltdowns we've had recently:
- Refusing to eat meals that I know she likes, and tantrumming for a 'snack'
- Kicking me/my chair at the dinner table
- Throwing toys around when she's angry, sometimes aiming them at me
- Following me around hitting and grabbing me when I'm trying to ignore her tantrumming
- Waking up multiple times a night and then asking for loads of things and screaming and shouting if me/DH try to tell her it's time to sleep and not have a chat about x/ no we wont do Y as she can do it herself (e.g. 'j want a drink' when her water bottle is on her bedside table but she screams and shouts and wants us to pass it to her...).
I could go on and on...
For some additional context we also have a 6 mo son. DD is absolutely fantastic with him and adores him. The night time and bedtime issues I feel she's been getting away with a lot more than she used to just because we are worried about her disturbing her brother (who sleeps in our bedroom, but it's a fairly small terraced house and she has a frankly migraine-inducing ear-splitting scream), which does happen fairly frequently.
Help!