All 3yos annoying?

[Labradoodlie]

I love my 3.5yo so, so much. She is gorgeous, funny, clever and kind.

But my god she is annoying sometimes. There’s an almost constant monologue about Paw Patrol which I need to contribute to, random noises, attempts to blow raspberries on me while I’m cooking, sudden desperate needs to find a particular toy/ colour of pencil/ teddy that she’s not looked at for months.

We also have a baby so I know this is exacerbated by her desire for attention, and my lack of sleep.

But are all 3 year olds super annoying, or just mine? And when do they stop?!?

Hey, oh man it's tough when there's a new one taking your sleep and attention and an older one wondering what on earth happened to their existence as the centre of your universe!

I was always worried about the terrible twos before having children but two has been a breeze in comparison to three! With the new baby there could it be she's struggling to transition from not being the soul focus of your attention? And lack of energy to empathize is a real thing! I can recommend the Calmer, Happier, Easier series of books. They recommended scheduling regular, quality 121 time with each child. With my oldest I scheduled in dates, where we'd go and do something normal that we'd used to do when it was just us. Like a trip to his fave park or something whilst the baby was napping, or have a box of stuff which only comes out when the baby was asleep so it felt like a treat and something for just us. It helped when he had regular 1 on 1 time (though as a parent the loss of sleep/get the house back on track whilst the baby sleeps was tough! Choose your hard I guess).

He's almost 5 now it's a lot easier/less constant. The behavior still creeps up if there's an attention imbalance/deficit in the house though. It's his way of saying what he needs from us, and when were responsive and proactive about it things improve. Some days it's overwhelmingly exhausting, but feels like I can either be exhausted implementing positive strategies for a happy household or exhausted from dealing with tantrums all day.

You got this. Sending you strength and hope you get some sleep!