HELP ME PLEASE!!!!!!!

[Loosingmyrag]

As the name and title says, Im on the bloody brink. DD is a lovely girl, but lately I haven't been able to enjoy her company fully. I'm heavily pregnant and DC is due next month. DD, to my horror, has ramped up her naughty behaviour. She isn't a bad child but she is so incredibly strong willed and knows her own mind. This means she likes taking control, testing boundaries and pushing back.

Every.single.day. it's a fight for her to eat her dinner/lunch. This battle can go on anyone from 1-2 hours which usually results in her going to bed hungry. And then there is the going to the toilet. She will point blank refuse to do a number 2 and there is nothing we can do to force her. We have tried positive reinforcement, encouragement, reward charts, bribery, routine, apps. We spoke to a specialist and pediatrician because at one point she would literally hold it for WEEKS. We've had the laxatives, high fibre diets, lots of water, suppositories, it took a lot of time but we thought we got her out of this phase. Now she has realised it's something she can dictate we are back to square one. I literally have to lock us in the bathroom for hours on end until she bothers to try and then eventually when she does, does it within minutes. It is simply all attention seeking. She doesn't care how she gets it, whether it's negative or positive.

When she gets in a mood she throws tantrums that include biting, hitting, slamming doors, shouting. She answers back and challenges us. She says no and just DOES NOT LISTEN when it comes to these things. It's like fighting with a teenager rather than a just turned 4 year old. I am so incredibly stressed out by this behaviour being on a decline so close to expectant DC coming. It takes all of both me and dp to get her to do these things, we are spent. I don't know how we are going to do this ontop of tend to a newborn. These things can't be neglected because it's important DD goes to the toilet regularly as the drs said her bowels would have already taken damage from months of holding it, and of course it's important someone sees to her eating. We have cut out snacks and there is never any pudding until all dinner is eaten. I don't know how we are going to cope and am so scared her behaviour is only going to get worse with the arrival of her sibling for more attention. We know to include her as much as possible and we've even given her gifts from the sibling but I fear it's not going to have much impact on weighing out the odds.

Please please help, any advice. Me and dp are both at the end of our tether and I miss my DD. I miss enjoying her rather than battling with her.

Can you relax on the food? Why does she have to eat all of her meal? Mine are grown up but at that age we went with the flow. There was fruit available at all times and if they were hungry before bed they could have cereal. They were never made to eat all that was on their plate as that can lead to disordered eating.
It sounds like things have hot into a spiral of negativity. Have you tried positives after negatives? So you say something like “hitting me was unkind but I’m glad you are letting me know you are angry, is there another way you can make yourself feel better?”.
I would get her an angry cushion. Mine had one on their bed that they were allowed to hit if they were angry.
The bowel issue is more difficult. She’s probably very constipated if she’s not going regularly but I’m not sure what you can do to encourage her. I presume you’ve tried sticker charts and incentives?

You said you’ve given her things from the new baby but that might be worrying her thinking too much about the impact a baby will have. I’d try to make gifts from you until baby is born.

It will pass!

Don’t make meal times a battle, give her a meal, if she doesn't eat it by the time everyone else has finished and she says she is done, take it away. If she's hungry later she can have fruit, plain toast or cereal (the plain, sugar and chocolate free kind).

Your DD will not starve, the human body won't let itself starve. My oldest DS hardly eats anything compared to other children yet his height and weight are fine, he's not underweight or overweight and there have never been any concerns. Some children eat more than others.

You sound like you making a drama out of meal times and she's playing on it. Possibly the same with the other issues. All children are different and learn different things at different times. There should not be any timelines or comparisons to other children.

I think you need to stop putting pressure on her to eat. I'd take the pressure out of lunch/ dinner time. I'd provide what I call baby tapas. Little picky bits of food instead of a meals. You can put a bit of meat, cheese, grapes, crackers and let her pick. Sit and have a chat and don't insist on her eating. Alternatively, you could get her to decide what she wants. Let her pick between two options. Do you want pasta or rice? Do you want grapes or apple. Giving choices help. I'd dk that in all areas only two options shoe's or wellies. This outfit or that one. Let her feel she gas some control while only giving her options you are happy with.

With the hitting, biting, shouting I wouldn't tolerate that. I'd say hands are not for hitting we use kind hands. These good behaviour books are really helpful and a none confrontational way of dealing with bad behaviour.

With the baby try to give her as much attention as possible. My older DD wanted to be the baby as well and I let her. I let her hug me and snuggle like a baby.

Another suggestion, when i was struggling with my DD behaviour i called my HV. They sent someone from the nursery nurse team to observe at home. They gave me some great tips on managing the behaviour and identified things i could change likr my instructions were too long. It was really useful.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Teeth-are-Biting-Best-Behavior/dp/1575421283/ref=mp_s_a_1_7?crid=1SL6H9DNUYFW0&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.wcZ7UY-F9i6a5vgLdtRHj53Hm-wp_Ts0OHoOExhsrYmBfDU07t-_fcDAZr8Cd-_xtX_RmVxb-03x5O-AZdGvAK3EEvij3_9aMXFi9mvvNuMVxdvetrDKQyh5vTPU7SmZKKsFVDDpz0R6PVf6Ww4yS19wBZVMZD19Z1Ul0USCWlZuOc8wSCuAs5SSuxpJZtMs.dIemkDovHLQqIJ3Hx17qGGLp17KP1Eo52KKNeF37DIo&dib_tag=se&keywords=good+behaviour+book+hands+are+not+for+hitting&nsdOptOutParam=true&qid=1736626795&sprefix=good+behaviour+book+hands+are+not+gor+hitting%2Caps%2C87&sr=8-7

Not at all saying she's not just a strong willed child - but she sounds very similar to my DD who now (age 6) been diagnosed autistic with pathological demand avoidance. Take a look at the signs at 3.2 - www.pdasociety.org.uk/about-pda/identifying-pda/

I appreciate it's different when it's an ongoing issue, but do you have to make meals and poos a battle?

If my 4 year old doesn't eat, I take the food away and offer them more food the next meal time.
They wouldn't be getting snacks or treats, as they've demonstrated their not hungry.
If they want snacks and treats, they should finish their meals (which are healthy foods in appropriate / small portions).

They poo when they want to, I've never told them to.
Is your daughter telling you she needs to go and then taking a long time? If so, could she just sit on the toilet and you go about the home getting things done until she calls for help?

Also, if she sees you're getting stressed or worked up, she may be thriving on this attention. It's just something kids do.

Never show you're getting anxious or stressed about the meals or poos.

I'd breezily chat away about other things, and not even mention the food or poos. If you demonstrate it's not a big deal, she'll follow your lead.

I've got a 4 year old and have been experiencing similar problems - tantrums and increasingly aggressive behaviour. Very worrying and so hard to handle, extremely stressful for all involved. This book has been a godsend - the Explosive Child by Ross Greene, it saved me from losing my mind. Helped me to understand her and gave me tactics to deal with her behaviour. It's not sorted overnight but this book was a life jacket in a situation that was becoming utterly unbearable.

Stop making it a battle. Look up the division of labour when it comes to food. Give meals and snacks, eat at the same time as her don’t comment either positively or negatively about anything she does or doesn’t eat. Don’t let a meal last more than 30 mins. Making it stessful isn’t working. Drop no pudding until she has eaten everything.

Look on the ERIC website. Encourage drink, milk, squash, anything to get her drinking. Get her sit in the toilet about 30 mins after a meal to see if a poo needs to come but no pressure on her. Get her poo goes to poo land app.

Her whole life sounds very stressful poor thing. Being 4 is tricky you have very little control. Try to add more control into her life eg blue or red top, cheese and crackers or apple snack. I would be aware of potential ND but it maybe that everyone needs to dial it down a notch. Try a visual timetable for her.

There is a lovely book I got for my oldest called ‘You were my first’. It’s about a child who is getting a sibiling but the Mum keeps saying you were the first. It made my oldest feel very special.

Just came on her to say, really don’t force her to finish all her dinner. I guess if she hasn’t pooped for a while she is feeling uncomfortable and full and prob can’t manage a big meal anyway. I would hate for someone to force me to eat. I Offer fruit anyway, or a healthy pudding and options for dinner you think she likes, eg one of mine prefers potatoes, the other bread so we offer both sometimes at meals, fish finger sandwich and wedges etc with peas and broccoli. And a bowl of cereal or toast is offered before bed

I also agree with giving lots of choices - would you like grapes or apple / crackers or banana etc and I would still do healthy snacks. Homemade banana muffins with low sugar can be a good choice to fill them up

And as others said, keep things light and calm. Try not to make a big deal at all out of meals, or the toilet, and limit conversations about it. Just lots of positive attention, maybe a nice afternoon out, garden centre cafe, park etc, a new colouring book, just something to relax you both and try to take attention away from the baby coming and have fun, she might be very anxious about it.

Also mine get very angry with mood swings when hungry, you mention she’s going to bed hungry therefore maybe the big tantrums are before bed. So I would try to ensure she is eating without all the battles and the tantrums might reduce naturally. Maybe you can do some baking together of healthy snacks etc or she can choose some dinner options

The more you push to eat the more they push back. When my son went through his picky stage, and even now sometimes I get lots of little pots and put different things in them and give them to him in a lunch box. Raw veg, fruit, yoghurt, cheese, crackers, marmite tortillas, crisps, gherkins etc. He will usually eat all of this and I don't comment just let him crack on. Don't comment on the pooing, just say "I'm going to go to the loo now if you would like to come" or something along those lines. When you stop giving it attention they get bored

I agree we need to tone it down, I realised with lunches if I offered DD a buffet style meal instead of whole meal she was more likely to eat. With dinner we allow her choice as obviously there is food she is more enthusiastic for and eats better. I want to stress we didn't start of all guns blazing, we tried the calm collective approach but I feel like this has been going on for so long and she has broken us. We no longer have the patience and we dread the days.

Have tried poo goes to poo land as the child specialist advised and looked at the website for constipation already. We have managed to get her out of the thick of it however I'm worried that if we let her take the reign and don't persist on her doing a poo one day turns into two which then turns into 4, next thing you know it's a week. When she doesn't poo, at her worse, it affects her health and appetite and it's a distressing thing to see. She becomes unable to eat, her stomach goes hard, she becomes lethargic and not herself. So we are trying our hardest for it not to get like that again, but she simply does not ever just "go on her own". The doctor said because she has had times of not going for nearly a month her body has kind of lost the ability to feel when she needs to go. So we are trying to prompt her. We can't rely on a 4 year old to keep her toiletry habits up unfortunately.

Thanks for the book suggestions everyone, will get straight on those!

This.

you are def right in addressing this now as battling for 1-2 hours a mealtime def can’t happen when you have a newborn as you won’t have the time or energy. Food has to be made whilst multitasking a baby and will prob relax focus on what your dd is eating as you’ll be trying to feed the baby etc

Does she go to pre school or anything @Loosingmyrag?

Shocked that u r having another child without taking parenting lessons for the one u already have, it’ll get worse once the baby is born.

Oh Fuck off

@Skybluepinky this behaviour was never really a problem when I wasn't pregnant since
A.) it wasn't that bad and has really ramped up the past couple of months

B.) we had unlimited time to dedicate towards DD and her needs

@VivaVivaa yes she goes to Pre-school and eats perfectly fine there! We know it's more a playing up for us thing than anything. Although with dinner times she is still very tricky be it with an aunty or grandparent.

When her withholding stool situation was at its worst her pre school literally brought it up since she was so lethargic she was lying around at school and not wanting to play. Maybe we are being overly cautious now but I don't think people are getting how she would nearly go a MONTH without pooing and it really impacted her body negatively. I just don't want it to go back to that again for her.

Therapist once told me there’s only two things a child can be in control of
what they put in and what they let out
made total sense to me my sister when little refused food and I refused to go to the loo,
at 6 years old
we had a very overbearing mother
when my own son started to be picky around food etc
i completely ignored it, difficult but didn’t want to make it a battle ground
made sure to let him make his own decisions about what he’d like to wear what colours he liked what book he’d like to be read at knight et cetera et cetera it really helped

Sounds alot like my son OP and he's been diagnosed with ASD (high functioning). For the constipation issues you could try the ERIC website for advice with kids. I think there's also a number on there you can ring.
My son has laxipeg every day to get him to go to the toilet more regularly. It's a bit trial and error with the dose but your GP can advise you. If she's very constipated then you she needs to take laxipeg at a dosage (recommended) by your doctor to get everything out, then she takes a dose to keep her regular. My son used to avoid going to the loo, because it hurt and then he was scared so that could be the case for your DD. Also when he is very constipated he won't want to eat much. Once she's got everything out, you lower the dosage of laxipeg to a level to maintain going regularly. I find warm baths help my son, to relax him, he's then more likely to go. Also when your DD is sat on the loo, ask her to pretend to blow bubbles, that works too to help them to go. If she has been withholding for a month/long period of time, the bowel can stretch and it can make it hard for them to realise when they need to go, they can lose the feeling.

That made me feel stressed just reading it I wonder how stressed it's making the 4 year old feel.
So much negative language out a young child's motive. I have a 4 yo too and I get the battles but they are because she's 4 and still learning emotional regulation and how to control their feelings. They are more likely to be trying to control their world rather than controling you. I wonder if reframing some of the situations as their world they are controlling rather than it being personal to you would help with how you are experiencing the situations

Meals- as long as my daughter has one good meal a day I don't stress about the rest. When she was at nursery she ate well for them at lunch and often the substantial snack so if she only would eat plain pasta and frozen peas for us that's what she ate. Now she's at school she won't eat much for them and the chef has changed her menu to foods she will eat and I think there's a lot of ham sandwiches! She's eating pretty well at home. She does better if there's stuff she can sprinkle on the top - usually raw carrots and cucumber batons. As long as she has shown willing in eating dinner she gets offered pudding but what she gets depends on how well she has engaged with dinner. If has happily eaten 2/3 of it she more options, if she's eaten 1/2 it bit but kept turning away from the table and pushing her plate away and complained it's fruit or yoghurt.
She is worse with change and fatigue. We have noticed a sharp decline in behaviour since starting school especially the first few and last few weeks of half term.
She does better with a strict routine especially. Mornings are breakfast dressed teeth hair out never dressed breakfast hair teeth. I try to avoid meltdowns by giving her what she expected but not always possible. Usual she has a hoodie for pe but due to snow she needed more layers on and with the hoodie and her waterproofs she wouldn't have fitted in her coat. I give her more time and patience in these situations or at least try too! I've changed the rules not her I just have to keep trying to move through the routine and get out of the door. I also know that if this was the middle of the term she would have been able to rationalise with her but in moments of pressure for her it's important for things to happen as they usually happen.