Ok, so this evening was an utter fiasco, help me learn from it pls. Long, sorry.

[phdlife]

You know how you can sometimes pinpoint the moment when things fall apart?

Well I don't know why 3yo ds suddenly turned fritzy this evening, only that everything sort of teetered for a while, then fell apart completely.

At dinner, he couldn't focus to stay in his chair - dh scoffed and ran, while 1yo dd was hurling herself out of her chair, so the meal kind of fizzled rather than finished iygwim.

Had to clean dd's nappy then chase ds out of playroom and into bath, where he snatches dd's facecloth. She implodes. Within seconds ds is screaming too, as he cannot bear dd's screaming in the tiled bathroom. (Loud noises have always been an extreme issue with him.) I calm them both. Until ds snatches dd's washcloth again and sets them both off screaming, again. At this point, I feel I've lost control but all I do is try to hurry things along a little, try to keep ds engaged.

I calm dd, then ds, get them into bedroom. Now ds is pinging off walls. I try to get his attention, ask him to help by getting his nappy for me. He runs off but comes back without nappy and goes all silly again. I try asking him, I'm kneeling trying to look him in the eye, but he's jiggling and humming and tapping like a little junky. And this on chickpeas and organic fruit yoghurt for dinner.

Anyway. Realising I can't reach him I cart him off to quiet corner, the little corridor leading to front door. He's had some practice with this place but not a lot - he was a pretty angelic 2yo. I say I'll be back for him in two minutes, but he needs to think a little about the proper way to behave. In less time than it takes me to get back into next room and get dd's nappy on, however, he's jumped out of QC and is scampering around all loud loopy la-la. dd is fretting because she's knackered and a little chilly. I park ds grimly back in QC.

At second return to QC ds is laughing his head off - it's a game - but I've also noticed, he sometimes laughs like this when he's... embarrassed? I'm starting to be a little . Not a lot. 3 out of 10 maybe. I know this is all standard 3yo fare but I don't know what kicked it off, I don't have a clue how to reach him now, and poor dd is tired and fractious and very much wanting to just be dressed and put to bed. Once she goes down I can manage ds.

So I haul ds into his bedroom and shut the door. Forgetting, in the heat of the moment, that he simply cannot cope with that.

I go back to dressing dd. Ds is going berserk. I check; he's turned his light on (room wasn't entirely dark, given the shades were up and there's a streetlight right outside his window). I dress dd as fast as I can but ds in his room is screaming like a banshee, which I take to be rage.

Except when I open the door, he hurls himself at me and he is trembling all over with fear. He sobs that he needs to hug me tightly because he's very very sad and he loves me very very much and he is literally, hysterical. He clings to me arms and legs, and it takes me a quarter hour to settle him.

When the hiccups stop I get him into his jams and read them both stories, then give him a pile of books and put on some classical music and take dd to feed and put to bed. Then we have a story and he climbs into my lap for our ritual bedtime chat about things he likes. I include "cuddles with mama" as something he likes but he says, "Except I didn't like it when you locked me in my room. I looked everywhere for you but I couldn't find you anywhere", and he clings to me again. He was, he said, scared because he hadn't locked the tigers in their cages - a reference to 2+ weeks ago when in attempt to lighten a grumpy "If you don't stop that this minute I'll..." I'd changed 'strangle you' to, "...throw you to the tigers." He'd laughed, asked "why?", we'd joked, the tension went away - he'd mentioned the tigers somewhat anxiously once or twice in the next two days but not since then - guess they're still there.

I reassure him, I didn't lock him in, I would never do that, I'm sorry I put him in his room and shut the door, I won't do that ever again, I'm sorry he was so frightened, the tigers aren't real, they're only pretend, even when I'm grumpy I still love him very much, and so does every other family member I can name, and he says he's going to have a bad dream about it, so I suggest he try to think of happier things, we conjure a dream with gibbons and diggers and tools and easter eggs and finally we get down to the normal bedtime delaying tactics and I can leave him to go quietly off to sleep.

Now I've learned a lot tonight, all of it hard, but I still I have to ask some questions about how to handle this smart, sensitive kid, because frankly my own mother only ever showed me how to make things worse, and I really don't want to do that to ds.

What should I have done, when he wouldn't stay in the QC?
Do I mention this evening's events again? Wait for his lead? If he raises the issue, is there anything I can say to help him learn from it?
And is there anything I can do to banish the fecking tigers?

Tia. But I have to go to bed now. Back tomorrow.

OK, will read again in more detail but initially, I'd get DH to be on hand for the next few bath and bedtimes, just to do a bit of "divide and conquer" and also to give some time to ds to talk about his fears/worries re tigers/being shut in. I'm also a big fan of the "How to talk..." book so if ds is bright and talkative I'd probably ask him how things could have been handled differently - he might surprise you! But seriously, give yourself a break - it was one night which went pear-shaped and you did a grand job in the circumstances, especially only reaching 3/10. As long as you have some time to talk to ds about what's worrying him, that'll be fine IMO.

Which end of 3 is he, young or old?

Tbh I think you did just fine, bedtimes with my two (3 and 1) often end up a bit like this, I personally would not bother with time out at bedtime (I very rarely use it anyway), just get them in bed as quickly as possible!

Even though you put a lot of detail in there, I'm still a bit .

What did your DS do wrong that he had to go into the QC? (What is that, quiet corner?)

Ime they get giddy after tea and/or baths, so I just let them have a lark about for a while and gradually get them ready for bed (mine are 3 and 2). I would avoid that time for reinforcing good/sensible behaviour as MegBusset said, provided they're not doing anything downright hideous.

Yes, and where was dh??

Tbh (in the gentlest way) reading it again I think you are overthinking it all, understandable if you are desperate to be a better parent than your own.

3yos are hard work bedtimes with 2 DC are bloody hard work sometimes it will all end in tears!

To me, it sounds like you handled it very well. I have no good advice really as DC2 is yet to arrive but I am frankly dreading bath & bedtime when I have 2 to contend with!

He sounds a lot like my DS in that he's sensitive, ie feels it deeply when you are cross with him/ he has to spend time by himself. I couls see DS reacting in exactly the same way if he was shut in his room- I'm not saying you were wrong to do this btw, you just needed to deal with a cold DD for a minute.

I too struggle to find the right balance between teaching him appropriate behaviour and not coming on so strong that it distresses him. But I'm trying, you're trying and that's about all one can do!

I don't know about banishing the tigers, just don't feel too bad about him latching on to that particular fear. If he is that sort of child (intelligent,imaginative, sensitive) then he could take anything really and turn it into a fear, he might just need an outlet for tension/ anxiety. I would just tackle them one by one as they come up- I heard somewhere that giving your child a water squirter to take to bed to zap any monsters etc that might come in the night can be helpful. But you know him best, would make my DS worse I think.

You sound like a lovely mummy, he sounds like a lovely boy. I think you are being far too hard on yourself and I wouldn't say that it in any way constitutes a disaster. Good luck for tonight!

I think you just need to accept it was a bad evening with the kids and not read to much into it. The only thing I would have done differently is after a dinner time melt down I wouldn't have done bathtime just let the kids run off some steam then calm down with story into PJs then bed.

QS lets be honest is just the same as naughty step but given a different name. Using such a method imo makes a child feel excluded and worried about if you love them. Children don't have a good sense of time at this age when you use such methods on them that withdraw of your affection/time feel permeant in that moment to them. We as adults know that we still love them no matter what and that our anger is only temporary but little ones still have a lot to learn.

I have similar aged children sometimes for me it's all about picking the right battle and if punishment is for the child's or my benefit of being in control and if thats what's really what my children need at that moment.

Honestly, I wouldn't have used the 'Quiet Corner' either. The instruction to 'think about the proper way to behave' is way too vague for even a smart 3 year old. I'd have let him run off steam for a bit then attempted to calm him down with tv/stories/whatever method usually works for him.

I also agree with those that say bedtime with a 3 and 1 year old is flaming hard work!! You often end up with 2 kids with conflicting needs and one will inevitably end up having to wait to get those needs met.

I really wouldn't beat yourself up about putting him in his room and I certainly wouldn't raise it again unless he does. My DS is 3 and goes on and on about the time (about 4 months back) when I left him asleep in the car, went back out to get him no more than 5 mins later and he'd already woken. He was very upset, poor little chap. He keeps asking me not to do it again, I reassure him every time that I won't, and I never have. Eventually he'll forget about it/realise that mummy won't shut him in his room again.

thanks all. dh works one evening a week and one weekend a month, otherwise he is the champion of bath/bedtimes. I don't have a lot of practice doing it single-handed!

thanks for ideas about quiet corner. I've never liked the idea as a punishment but have found it an effective place for ds to get re-centred. Sometimes when he's been rough with dd, he has a sit there and then, HTT-style, can come out with a better way of retrieving his toy/protecting his space/etc than what actually happened. Realise now however that last night he was already too far gone for that to be useful, I just didn't see it at the time.

normally I'm ok with him being a bit bonkers after his bath (honestly, sometimes you'd think we bath the child in pure caffeine) but he was starting to trash the place and I know if he'd been left he would've got out of hand v quickly. It wasn't just the usual post-bath fritzing, he was in a real "let's see just how wild I can be" mindset and that included winding dd up too. I think now I should've just shut the bedroom door and got dd to sleep, let ds run wild outside. He handles that fine.

he was defiant and stroppy again tonight - he is 3.1 so I guess we're all getting the hang of it [gah] - but at least dh and I muddled through it together. I knew the answer for refusing to pick up his toys: "No! You do it!" "If I do it, they'll go in a bag away for a bit." "YOU do it!" "Fine." Toys bagged. but what, pray tell, might be the "natural consequences" of refusing to set table (has been his job for about 6m) and throwing cutlery on floor?

ps. "overthingking"? megbusset - me? now there's one I haven't heard squillions of times before

thanks all.

I think what you did was fine, or at least I'm not sure what else you could have done!

Is he at all competitive? I often use the idea of a race between me getting doing something and dd getting her pjs on to move things along and I find it works quite well, so long as she wins .

I can't think of a natural consequence for refusing to lay the table but tbh I wouldn't even try to get a 3 year old to do it! I hate it when I can't think of a natural consequence for something that I really need dd to do so I try to avoid asking her to do things that I don't need her to do that don't have a natural consequence iyswim (bit long-winded).

My only further thought on the table laying is that if he doesn't want to do it then you could just say ok, shrug and then comment about how nice it is to be helpful to others.
In a different situation when you are helping him you could then also comment "see how I am helping you do x, isn't it nice when we help each other", dd likes the concept of teamwork and "working together to get the job done" (don't kniow where she gets that from, thanks Bob and Wendy ).

Mine are a bit older than yours (5 and 7) and if they did not lay the table, dinner would not be going on it until the appropriate knives and forks were there, not sure whether you can do this with a 3 year old though.

I think your expectations of a 3.1 year old may be a bit hight. Possibly the reason why you can't think of a natural consequence of not laying the table is because he's too young to understand properly about helping others/contributing to household tasks. It's the kind of job I would ask and encourage my 3 year old to do but certainly not expect him to HAVE to do it. I'd be praising him for any help he does give and keep asking and encouraging him to help but not punishing him when he doesn't. I'd only expect to be doing that for an older child who understands that their behaviour is selfish/unhelpful.

If he throws cutlery on the floor generally then I'd say the natural consequence of that would be to get him to pick them up and clean them/put them in the dishwasher.

fair enough. am still adjusting to new 3yo personality. 2.6, 2.7, 2.8, 2.9 and even 3.0 loved setting the table. 3.1 apparently despises helping in any way

thanks Pixie. he's got a soft tiger somewhere that he's probably forgotten about, I shall dig it out and task it appropriately.