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.

Soz!

DS told everyone he had a baby brother who we had left in Germany (he didn’t and we hadn’t 😂)

100% this.

I've had "mummy hit me in the face and I was crying!" and "daddy bashed me!" (2 and a half years old)

Total gibberish. They're just figuring things out.

Ask her to show you how daddy does that. Hopefully it'll shed some light for you but it does sound like she's confusing things xxx

And don't stop the rough play. She asks for it and is clearly enjoying it. Roughhousing is good for children who enjoy it and seek it out. It's good for their physical development.

Ahh op this is no help to you but the whole thread is making me feel a lot better about the time I had my cousins to stay years ago, it was a big deal for them to come to mine and have a sleepover without their parents.

Smallest one(5-6ish at the time) fell in love with the fluffy pink unicorn shaped cat bed and took it to bed with her to cuddle. All good, we had a lovely time, watched films, ate a lot of popcorn and chocolate, all slept well in actual beds with plenty of pillows and comfort. Returned them all safe and happy to my mum's the next day where their parents were staying. They asked how it had been, smallest one piped up "I slept on the cat bed on the floor all night" 😳

Fortunately their parents found this very funny but despite a fair amount of experience with children I was mortified!

Different smaller cousin (I have what feels like millions of them) went through a stage of saying "dick" when he meant "stick" very loudly and excitedly every time we went for a sodding walk and the dog found a stick and it took me ages to get him to stop! I still don't know if he was doing it for the reaction or not, was probably about 3 at the time.

Anyway, thank you for making me feel better and I hope you get to the bottom of the stomping!

Edited for late night bad grammar!

😂😂😂😂😂

have you asked her to show you what she means ie to demonstrate it? Or use two dolls and tell her to show you?

Slightly random but do you have the fisher price play gym mat? One of the songs on it has the line "stomp stomp stomp" in it repeatedly and while I probably very rarely said the word stomp before it's now part of my daily vocabulary.

I'd stop the rough play for a bit, and see if that helps. Do things like tickling her hands instead to continue the physical connection.

Little ones come out with all sorts my son once told the nursery that me and his granny were poisoning him. I got took in the office .long story short he had been watching snow White and associated being given apples as being poisoned.

Lots of kids songs from YouTube have the word stomp in so I think kiddos use it more now than stamp.

I had a toddler that scratched his arm in the woods and told anyone who would listen he was the victim of a knife crime. Nursery rang me, to inform me he was saying "stabbed!" And pointing at his arm. They're not reliable narrators but you're absolutely right listening to her, the Teddy advice is excellent. I hope you get to the bottom of this @pbdr

I'm hoping that this is a joke.

Well I know my niece used to tell people my bother would beat her up, he didn't and my brother used to tell people my gran had hurt hi , again she hadn't, it's quite common for some reason I think.
However we just never just assume kids aren't tell us the truth. I'd ask her to show you what she means, ask her to do it to you et . Try get some more info around the topic. Maybe she's saying stomp and she means shout or something else? Does he use the naughty step and you don't? Saying she's scared of him is worrying but at 2 they are starting to feel emotions so being told no could scare her etc.
personally at this point I wouldn't jump to conclusions but she's clearly trying to relay some message to you.

Don't be ridiculous.

Don’t stop the rough play if she is clearly enjoying it and there is no evidence that something bad is happening.

As lots of PPs have said, toddlers misinterpret situations and concoct all kinds of mad stuff from tv, stories, dreams, desires and things that have happened to other people. They are just verbalising ideas most of the time.

How ridiculous and damaging for your children

Imagine the long term psychological trauma of a child blaming themselves for saying something silly and then never seeing daddy again.

To you, maybe. Other people have different experiences.

OP hope you get to the bottom of it soon. However my own youngest now 4 could get us all shot.

'Nanna Mammy tickled my tail and it made me laugh' what actually happened is we were getting him dry after a bath, rubbed towel down his legs etc and it tickled him - doesn't sound good though.

'Mammy my (older DB) threw me on the floor - he didn't they were play fighting laid on the floor and he fell off brothers back.

Teacher asked about a bruise on his chin 'my Daddy did it' - daddy didn't do it I was there. They were on the bed DS launched himself to dive onto DH and bashed it off the wooden bed frame

'Mammy Nanna stabbed me' she wasn't she got him dressed and her nail was sharp and caught him

For everyone saying they would leave instantly - imagine if we took the word of above. There would be family separation for no reason.

I am aware abuse does take place however it needs to be looked into a little before deciding that is what has happened

Ignore anyone who ever tells you not to play wrestle etc with children. It a child enjoys it, it is wonderful bonding time and so beneficial to their development of gross motor skills, their understanding of their own bodies, their strength, proprioception. Look at young animals of all kinds; cubs, monkeys, apes, rats. They play fight with their parents.

So many women are keen to stamp out play fighting, roughhousing etc. It's ridiculous. For boisterous children it's so essential to their development. I roll my eyes every time someone tells mothers on this site that the father of their child shouldn't be playing this way, or makes mad suggestions like a PP to "tickle her hands instead" or "read a book with her, that can be their thing" 🙄

I 100% roughhouse with my son who is 2 and a half. He absolutely bloody loves it. He's a sweet, polite, kind natured little boy. He plays happily for hours, will sit and look at books on his own for ages, loves long cuddles and bedtime stories, doesn't lash out at other children, so very rarely tantrums. But he absolutely loves a good tussle on the bed. I throw him about like crazy and I love to hear those giggles.

I feel sorry for children being denied this kind of play. If they crave it they will start to seek it it elsewhere and get into bother wrestling with friends when they've not been able to safely learn how to use their own bodies with an adult.

If you know it's not true, and she's got the vocabulary to explain further but won't, I would just jot it down as one of those things kids say.

Kids honestly do say the craziest shit.

My little boy came to me to say that Gran Gran had sucked him off.

Considering his Gran Gran was in the other room and she heard this she burst out in hysterics because what had actually happened is he'd put his sticky chocolate covered fingers in her mouth and we'd just got new cream leather sofas so in a panic she took the opportunity and sucked it off his hands.

He has also gone to school and said mummy hit me, which is true, I did hit him. I hit his back because he decided to bite a chunk off a chupa chup lolly and choke on it, so I did everything I could to dislodge it.

If i took everything my son said seriously at that age god nose where we would be, we would have no one. At that age if he didn’t want to speak to someone in the family on FaceTime it was because ‘i no like them’ and when asked why no he’d point at random bits of his body and say auntie hit him here or granny kicked him here, i think everyone has had a go. I know when my son has been rolling about carrying on near my feet i have told him to move out the way incase he gets stomped on

😂 🤣 fucking hell

I thought she might have seen The Hale and Pace video but just realised that’s the Stonk not stomp. That’s news for me and maybe your toddler