The devil makes work for idle three year olds....

[TinyTeachr]

Would love some solidarity from other parents of 3yos. Or ideas on how to make changes!

I have 3yo twin boys (also a 7yo DD and an 8 month old). One of the boys is driving me round the bend this summer. He Wants Attention ALL the time. He's lovely if I'm reading with him or we're out doing something, but I'm desperate to have time to clean the kitchen and similar! The second he doesn't have my full attention if we are at home he starts doing something naughty - tipping out toys, pulling his brother's hair, generally causing mayhem.

Please tell me this is a relatively normal phase and it will pass! I'm getting very low on patience with him

Involve him in whatever you're doing? My 3yo loves 'washing up' while I clean the kitchen, aka excessive bubbles in the sink and a bit of warm water, as many plastic pots and spoons, beakers/toddler cups that I can throw in.

Or getting lunch. 3yo loves grating cheese and chopping cucumber (with a toddler friendly plastic knife), attempting to spread butter or cream cheese on sandwiches. I clean up around them.

My 3yo gets rough with my 1yo if they don't have my full attention or aren't engaged with something specific. Sometimes, a snack and a bit of TV is fine too.

Well done for managing twins, a 7yo and baby too! 💪😲🙌

@JumpstartMondays I definitely definitely should get him more involved in things. I keep telling myself he needs more positive attention but I find it hard to stay on top of things. Getting him involved is probaly exactly what he needs. Will try and put some thought into how to do that.

TV may be necessary, but I don't much enjoy it being on. Looking forward to when they're a bit older and will watch something less iritating.

@TinyTeachr I don't enjoy TV being on either. We have firm (too strict maybe?) boundaries around it. We only ever watch 2 things in a day (e.g. 2 episodes of something) and the shows are limited to a small selection too. My littles know the boundaries and even tell their baby sitter if the TV gets put on while I wasn't there 😂 "uuuhm we're only allowed to watch 2 things, turn it oooooofffffffff" anything too irritating I haven't introduced them to! I tend to chose when I offer them to watch TV to help me out most in the day!!

I agree with PP - getting them involved is great even if everything takes so much fucking longer, at least it's calmer lol. I only have the one so sometimes we will do things like bake a cake where she's really involved in what I'm doing (and making so much mess), but her real favourite thing to do is sit on the kitchen floor with a bowl and 'wash up'.

I can't imagine how much more difficult it is with a 7yo, twins and a baby....how amazing are you! X