Toddler saying "daddy stomps on me"

[pbdr]

I have a 2.5 year old daughter with my husband who is an absolute joy and the light of both of our lives.
In the past few weeks she has taken to saying "I'm scared of daddy", and when I press her on why she says "daddy stomps on me". On one occasion she also said that daddy stomps on mummy. Today she said "daddy hurts me" but didn't seem able to elaborate any further.

The thing is, my husband and I have been together for 17 years, since we were at school, and he is an absolute golden retriever of a man. He is gentle and calm, and in all the time we've been together I've never seen him act remotely aggressively or lose his temper. It's one of the things that made me fall in love with him. He is absolutely besotted with his little girl, and other than these statements she also seems to be besotted with him. He's never do much as raised his voice at her.

He does do sort of rough play with her, like tossing her onto the sofa, or dangling her upside down by her ankles, but while he's doing this she is giggling and squealing with excitement, and saying "Again! Again!" so I'm quite sure he's not scaring her. She doesn't act at all scared of him, and will happily be left alone with him or go out with him on her own.

I can tell he's starting to feel quite sad about the whole thing but he's not really sure what to do. I also don't know how to respond to her, because I'm certain what she's saying isn't true, but I would always want her to disclose if someone was hurting her, so I don't want to just shut it down. She's due to start nursery in October though and I cant pretend I'm not a bit anxious about her going in and claiming she gets stomped on at home.

Any advice appreciated.

We can't remember him stepping accidentally on her foot or anything.

We are in Scotland. I'm sure sometimes when we sing it at playgroup we say "stomp" but I'm doubting myself now!

I do wonder if she's said it offhandly once and we've reacted in an interesting way/ given her attention and she's repeated it/ expanded the story because she liked that? Maybe not reacting too much is best, but then I don't want her to think I'm not interested if she's telling me someone hurts her.

Same here. My dad was also a lovely, kind, gentle man. But I can remember him holding me up above his head when I was quite little so that I touched the ceiling. I can still remember the fear, but presumably I wasn't acting scared or he wouldn't have continued.

Point taken, she does frequently ask him to do it but perhaps she's too young to really know how she feels about it/ thinks it'll be fun but then finds it scary and giggles as a stress response? We will definitely step back from rough play for now.

My 2yr old absolutely loves being swung around by her arms, or dangling and spinning upside down by ankles. I have to stop after a few mins coz my arms hurt, but she always wants "more, more, more" and however much I do is never enough, she always gets upset that I stop. I do sometimes throw her onto her bed/sofa, obv gently throwing which she likes, but only the once not repeatedly

So, I expect she very much does love it.

Sounds like imagination.

If you have not a single shred of similar information, instinct or concern from anywhere, I would think it's safe to disregard it. Particularly as "stomping" on her would cause bruising and stomping on you is something you would have noticed (to put it mildly). "He stomps on you too" is the kind of elaboration children make to signal that this is make believe.

Stomp is a very unusual word for a 2.5 yo to know. I wonder if she means something else when she says that, or has picked up the word from a book or TV programme?

I'd ask your DH to not indulge in any boisterous play that's likely to get her over-excited or could be too physical, for example throwing her down on the sofa then flopping down next to her, he could be underestimating his own strength or weight.

I also think I would ask her to show me what she means- either herself or with a teddy. Could she elaborate with direct questions- where does daddy stomp on you? Etc. it might help you work out what she means.
I also wonder if it's the word 'on' that she is confusing- could she mean he stomps after her- my partner plays a game of chasing our daughter and slowly stomping after her.

My dd went through a phase of saying everytime I dropped something ‘mummy HITS!’ (I think she meant whatever item was hitting the floor ! I’m clumsy!) and if I spoke in even a normal tone she would scream at me to ‘stop screaming!!!!!’ (She has sensory issues to ASD). She went to nursery one morning and said both - they called me in and were very accusatory I told them in no uncertain terms exactly what she said and why she had said it, a week later after a fall at home she had a little bruise which I explained but they still called social service and gave the other info too - I immediately withdrew her from the nursery - I explained to the SW and she went from wanting a medical exam done to understanding that dd wasn’t at any risk at all when she dropped her pen at our house and dd had a total meltdown about ‘lady hitting’

It's probably nothing. If she's happy in his company and seems otherwise ok. For comparison, my dd is only a few months older than yours and she'll say 'daddy shouted at me' if my dh is remotely firm in his tone of voice. They can perceive things in an exaggerated way I think because they're small.

Stomping as a word is very specific and I would doubt a 2.5 year old would know what it means. Could you be hearing stomping but she's saying something else?

Any direct questions I have tried asking have just been met with her reiterating that "Daddy stomps on me".

He does actually play a game where he pretends to be a tiger and sort of chases her while she giggles and says "Silly daddy tiger!". Perhaps she sees it as him scarily stomping after her? This could be it.

It is of course possible she is saying "stomping" but meaning something else. I'll try asking her to show me with her teddy next time she mentions it.

Kids do say mad stuff sometimes... my daughter once pushed the cap off a bottle into her eye socket so hard it bruised, for reasons only known to herself!! When she went into nursery they asked her what happened and she told them my DH pressed it into her face!!
The nursery actually rang me up about it. Luckily I had seen her actually pushing the bottle cap into her eye so I knew it wasn't him.
It transpired that she had blamed it on him because she thought the nursery staff would tell her off if she let on she had done it.
My DH was mortified but we laugh about now years later.
If you know for sure that your DH isn't hurting her then I'd just ignore it other than gently questioning her over what exactly she means if she says it again. However you might never get to the bottom of where she's picked this phrase up or why she is saying it.

My dd told the nursery staff twice that I'd bitten her, it had hurt and she'd had to tell me to stop. She even had a mark on her tummy to prove it. Once they put down to nonsense but they had to call me in when she repeated it the next day.

I eventually realised managed to piece together:

1. A tic had bitten her on her tummy. She'd conveniently forgotten about that.
2. I would sometimes pretend to eat or bite her, with my mouth far away from her (so absolutely no contact) and she'd giggle her head off
3. She'd recently nipped me a couple of times, to the point of it hurting me. I'd said 'ow' each time and told her it wasn't nice.

So she'd learnt that biting hurts but justs turned the whole thing on its head!

He should bloody well stop it and toddlers aren't up to much by communicating so amazed at your laissez faire attitude

Absolutely this, You're overthinking this OP and you've got a long several years of weird and wonderful things that she will come out with, if its going to have this effect every time you're going to be exhausted

Yes most children love this, not all but most.

My attitude is not "Laissez faire", but I have watched her asking him on many occasions to play these games, seemingly having a great time and giggling with glee, demanding "Again, again! More!". I therefore was under the impression that she found it fun and enjoyable, hence my lack of concern until now.
As I have said several times already on this thread we have discussed it and agreed that, despite how happy it seemed to make her, rough play will stop now. Thanks for your reply.

My partner and I once looked after my toddler niece for the weekend, had a lovely time. When her parents got home she happily informed them, as well as we could decipher, that we had made her sleep outside in the shed. The instant she spotted a reaction the story grew arms and legs about how her favourite toy was in her bed instead of her and she was so cold she had to go and find a swan to cuddle to keep her warm (luckily we were trusted family members and I suspect the inclusion of the cuddling back garden swan might have swung the jury in our favour)

I agree with pps about stopping the rough play for now, see if that changes her comments.

When DS was 3.5 he told nursery very dramatically that I had 'kicked him down the stairs'. In reality our legs tangled when he tried to squeeze past me. He slipped down 1 step on his bum. Kids can be dramatic.

DD age 4 told her reception teacher she had burnt her hand because she had to make her own breakfast and that she was regularly left alone at home.

I had put her toast in the toaster and went up to throw some clothes on (as I did every morning) however this morning she decided to 'help' and grabbed the toast out of the toaster and burnt her finger on the metal bit.

Perception is everything. She saw me going to get dressed as abandoning her all alone!

My 2.5 year old ran into my dh legs the other day and then spent the next hour telling me daddy had bonked him on the head 🤣 he told me today that the man in the fridge ate his lunch 🙈 he's also afraid of cauliflower apparently 🤣toddlers definitely say some weird stuff but I'd stop the rough play and see does she stop saying it

My friends little girl did this at a similar age. Would blame any mishap on daddy. She once ran ahead of us 3 (me, friend, friends DH) in a shopping centre and slipped on the tiled floor. Fell flat on her face and started screaming “Daddy pushed me” even though he wasn’t close enough. She did grow out of it.

My ds used to say ‘Grandma put me on the floor and stomped on me/walked on mr’

Hes 30 now. Grandma has been dead 20 years. But l assure you she never did anything like this.

She was very frail and weak with COPD. She could hardly walk anywhere, much less stomp!

Does he ever do that thing where they stand on a parent's feet and they go off walking (stomping?) together?

Are you sure she's even saying stomp?