DS2 is mid tantrum and we are in stalemate...

[redclover79]

He is 26 months and is wanting a yoghurt. He will not even attempt to say the word. I have given him and his sister an alternative snack but he is still bellowing away 20 minutes later. AIBU to ask him to communicate verbally? He will only grunt at me at the moment. I've taken him out of his highchair and told him he can have a yoghurt at lunchtime and he's just this minute headbutted the back of the highchair and bitten his lip. I'm tryimg the 'it's Just A Phase' mantra and have stayed calm and firm, but what next?! Any help gratefully received, thanks!

My ds at this age - I would remove him to somewhere safe (usually hall - lots of floor space with nothing much to throw yourself onto) and plonk him down, and leave - ideally shutting the door. With no one to be an audience, he soon stopped - and I would go in and act as though the whole thing hadn't happened. Difficult age though! Good luck

Can you do something really interesting that he might want to come and join in?

Or take him into a different room (realise this may be easier said than done).

I'd try to completely ignore any mention of yoghurt, as he might think there is going to be one now and not understand through the tantrum that there will be one at lunchtime.

Put some music on and dance?

I am guessing he can actual say 'yoghurt' then?

Ignore the tantrum and do something fun / noisy with your DD.

Um, i'm not sure it matters that much that he says it if he's just over 2yrs old. But i could be wrong. My DS1 wouldn't say much at that age, then suddenly we couldn't shut him up.

If it's got to the point of a tatrum over it now though, i suppose you'll just have to grin and bear it.

I think it's worth picking your fights with toddlers, else you risk everything becoming a battle.

Sympathy with the tantrums though- my DS2 has just started having them. They seemingly are caused but nothing, and i've never seen meltdowns like it, and he's barely over 18mths.

Just wondering, did you not let him have the yoghurt becasue he didn't say it, or becasue you weren't going to let him have it anyway?

I would have let mine have the yoghurt probably, but I do think I am a soft touch sometimes. Once I had said no to it, I would have continued with that though

If it helps, I found that trying to force my DS at that age to say something, just made him blow a fuse. He couldn't compute the reasonable etc. I found that holding out my arms at the time that he was at his worst, diffused him, gave him lots of loving and then he calmed down enough for me to introduce another interesting topic. I also found that during growth spurts, DS ate loads and when he'd had enough, his attention naturally went onto something else.

Thanks for your responses, I do try and pick my battles but he's going through a phase of wall to wall tantrums at the moment it seems! We're stuck here as we've got visitors in half an hour but I think we will go in the garden to calm down. I think the crux of the speaking problem is that there is only 11 months between ds2 and dd and ds2 would prefer to be babied IYKWIM. I'm trying to slowly move him onto the next phase but I'm starting to wonder if that's such a good idea. He can say a fair few words but he just won't! He doesn't call me mummy anymore, I am now 'meh' which is the only sound he'll use most of the time...
I've been making a fuss of dd and ignoring ds2's earlier tantrum after being told 'no throwing books'. We have music on (also caused a tantrum as ds2 doesn't want music on but dd does and so does mummy). I just seem to get to the stage where I run out of ideas to distract and it becomes a test of endurance...

Going into the garden sounds a good idea

I hate tantrums. DS (5) had one after school yesterday over me moving a chair. It was hard work

Sometimes it is a test of endurance! I think sometimes you just need to let them get on with it!

fwiw, I think that once you'd decided to say no (for whatever reason) then no it must stay - or he will quickly learn that a no can be turned into a yes by tantrums. And if you think you've got it bad now - you try dealing with a child whose daft parents have allowed them to learn they can tantrum their way to what they want!

Nahui and Rita, I get myself into these situations and then I feel like I can't back out! It started because ds2 asked for a yoghurt by yelling and screaming and I wanted him to ask nicely. I wanted to handle it without being a pushover, this technique had been working I thought!

can I just clarify though - are you saying that he has massive tantrums and has lost speech that he used to have? Does he never say words you used to hear, or is it just that he won't when you ask him to but you are still hearing him at other times?

Hecate - he will use words at other times and he probably would have done today if we weren't on the third tantrum since the schoolrun! He always calls bins 'meh' (he loves bins BTW, it's a real treat to put the recycling in the big bin outside!) and if I turn it into a game he will say bin (i.e. DS2 -meh, me - oh yes look at the dog, ds2 - MEH, me - that's a big tree, ds2 - MEH! me - ooh look, the bus!, DS2 - bin!). I think it's in part due to laziness and also to be the sole recipient of attention for as long as possible. I'm finding it really difficult to balance ds2 and dd lately and they seem to both vie for attention!

Hmm. It is a bit unusual to 'lose' language to that extent, unless I've misread. Are you sure he hasn't had an ear infection, a cold recently etc?
But sympathies, it's an interesting age, isn't it

There's such a small gap between them. It's certainly challenging! - they're both still so young. - I know what it's like, there's only 15 months between mine, but I was lucky in that they both have autism so attention from me was never high on their list of priorities!

Could you arrange 1:1 time for each of them? Perhaps you take one and your partner take the other sometimes?

I think you are well within your rights to expect him to ask nicely for it! However, be careful that you don't turn that into only giving him things when he uses the right word.

If he pointed to the yoghurt and said "meh" nicely, then unless you have an issue with him having the yoghurt per se, then I think you should give it to him. Toddlers can't really understand the difference between communicating with the proper word and communicating through other means - they just see it as different ways of communicating their needs/desires - so they don't understand why they would be rewarded for one mode of communication but not the other. Hence they're likely to get very upset if they don't get it when they think they asked nicely as they don't understand why they get it one time (when they say yoghurt) and not another (when they said meh).

There is a useful book called Baby Talk by Sally Ward you may want to look at. It is ostensibly a 30 minute a day programme to help your child's speech but I'm not doing that (seems too much like being organised and being a bit of a pushy parent, and I'm a bit slovenly in that regard!), but I am actually finding it really useful about how to encourage DS's language skills. It talks a lot about not pressurising babies/toddlers into using language as that can make them feel less inclined to use it - so don't force the right word, don't ask tonnes and tonnes of questions etc, but just encourage conversation and use the correct word a lot yourself.

Put him somewhere safe. Have a cuppa. Come back to it when you have both calmed down.

HolidaysQueen - thanks for the book recommendation, will look into that and see if I can get hold of it through the library.
Hecate - It is a small gap and I'm worried that I'm losing my way with all the parenting lark! My parents were pretty hopeless so I feel like I'm trying to find my way in the dark a lot of the time! We need to try and make 1 to 1 time time, it's been more of a priority to organise that with ds1 up until this point as the younger two have been quite content.

Oh, poor you tantrums are not fun. My eldest (now 5) would carry a tantrom on for what seemed for hours, not great. I do think though that at 26m he would not have the capability to think 'oh I know what I will wind her up today, I want meh, that will do her in'. My son had speech problems and the key is to encourage not punish. So for instance if he said 'meh and pointed at something specific to show me then I would say, yes its a bin' If he said 'meh' when he actually wanted something I was told to say 'DS do you want a banana or a yoghurt' putting the word you think he wants last then he is more likely to copy it. If he still says 'meh' and points at the yoghurt then say 'yes a yoghurt' and let him have it as long as thats OK! Key things were to always start with a yes to keep it positive, so you are never saying no thats not how you say it. DS would call Daddy DAH so I would say, yes its Daddy. Not no it should be Daddy. The Sally Ward book is fab, really, really interesting.

Hope that helps a bit... as for the tantrum, safe place maybe and large glass of wine for you

yes agree completely with wags, by making it such an issue you're probably making the situation worse tbh
I wouldn't worry about the speech thing, it'll get picked up at his 2 and half year check if there is anything to worry about

Just want to point out redclover that I only said all those 'perfect things' after loads of advice on here and from a speech therapist. Before that I just yelled 'for Gods sake just tell me what you want' on a regular basis so don't feel bad