Toddler sharing/discipline?

[Dakin]

I have a 20 month yr old toddler with another baby due in a month.

My toddler is usually good humoured and reasonably well behaved. At creche we have had issues with biting over toys which they are fairly on top of. She seems to have this issue only with other toddlers. With all other children older there is no problem but in crèche and more recently with a cousin (2 months older) she snatches, won't share or listen and tantrums. She'll be around her cousin for the next few days and I want to take the opportunity while I can to act on this when it happens in front of me. What is the best way to address? Is she too young to understand sharing? Taking her away from the situation?

They can't really understand sharing at this age as they lack empathy for others so can't understand that someone else would want/desire something. Best to speak positively when you observe she is sharing well but don't make a huge deal if she isn't, just try to distract and move on. We talk about turn taking more than sharing which I think she does get the gist of. Our biting phases always occurred when she was teething. We used the strategy from 'how to talk so little people will listen' and encouraged her to bite a teether if she was in the mood for biting, and told her if she did go to bite someone that it made us sad. The biting phases were all pretty short lived here to be honest.

Not sure it's reasonable to expect sharing at this age

Thanks both, I probably am expecting too much too soon. Just keen to prepare her before the baby gets here.

It's so hard to gauge expectations isn't it, especially as they all develop at different rates. Can't recommend that book enough, it really helped me.

https://www.janetlansbury.com/2009/11/the-s-word/ Janet Lansbury has some excellent blog posts on issues like this. I really rate her books and podcasts when it comes to understanding toddler behaviour.

I think 20 months is still quite young, but we have found encouraging 'taking turns' much more effective than trying to get them to understand the concept of sharing. They soon learn that taking turns means they'll get the toy back when it's their turn again.