Struggling with 3.5 year old

[stickytoffeepud123]

Hey! Just wanted some advice to see if anyone has been in a similar situation/if 3.5 years seems to be a common difficult patch?😅

My daughter is 3.5 (August 2020) and she has been REALLY stressing me out the last few weeks/months.

The main things she has been doing that stress me out are

1. general tantrumming when she doesn’t get her own way/doesn’t get what she wants straight away. E.g if she asks for a snack and I say 2 minutes I’m just finishing the dishes, she will absolutely flip her lid at that and go into horrendous tantrums. I try and “gentle parent” to an extent and have always talked/worked through situations with her but this is something that she needs to be able to deal with- I can’t do everything as soon as she asks and she needs to learn to wait/sometimes no means no. (She also has a younger sister so of course my attention is split between them)

2. purposely winding me/others up. She will do things like pull/poke at people (mainly
   me or her sister) and doesn’t listen when told to stop, she just carries on and laughs until I end up losing my patience, then she gets upset. I get that she’s just being silly and trying to push boundaries but again this needs to stop

to summarise- I guess I’m just finding her behaviour really challenging at the moment. It’s obviously fairly normal toddler stuff, but it’s just really ramped up lately and I’ve heard a few people mention that 3.5 is a tricky age where a lot of children act up more- is this the case and I just need to ride it out??

any advice would be appriciated!