Yet another post about my screaming ds. Please come and tell me it will pass.

[HumphreyCobbler]

We had a party yesterday to celebrate our new garden. Ds usually adores parties, he loves all the people and runs around really happily.

This wasn't the case yesterday. He was brilliant all morning, did quite a lot of screaming but we managed to ignore/get him to use words instead etc.

But as soon as people arrived he started. DH or me spent to WHOLE time taking it in turns to placate/distract/calm him down etc. He was so bad we even gave him Calpol in case he had another ear infection (he gets these all the time which doesn't help behavior).

There were about twenty people in the garden, we had to sort the food, get it all out, give people drinks and pretend everything was ok when actually it was totally shit and awful. I just kept pouring drinks in the hope it would insulate them from the noise.

We tried everything, I even took him upstairs for a feed which I don't usually do in the day, but that didn't work. Basically he was in a state of total tantrum for about five hours. It was awful.

I don't even know why I am posting this apart from I need to get it off my chest. I feel truly truly shit this morning, embarrassed, angry and humiliated and a failure as a parent.

My DS has times like that as well - why do they seem to do it when you have a house / garden full of people. I haven't got any advice but just wanted to say I empathise, and it WILL pass.

Hope he's better today. Ds1 goes through phases of being like this and quite frankly it's embarassing.

A difficult but effective way I've found is to actively ignore it. Have told him I won't talk to him unitl he's calm.
Then I sing to myself and talk to myself and just step over where ever he is lying on the floor. DS1 is 3 by the way and it's now far far less it used to be.

Thanks for that. It IS embarrassing, isn't it? Any interations seems to make him so much worse and ignoring results in injuries

I have calmed down a bit now. He has been much better today, and DH has promised to have DD all night (for the first time) so I can get a full night for the first time this year!