SO's youngest boy has been living with us 3 nights a week for over a year and half now, since he was 2 and a few months to now nearly 4. He never showed signs of distress at the transition to two houses (I know this doesn't mean there wasn't more going on under the surface with him), he seemed to take it in his stride. We had a few problems with him waking in the night and crying because at mum's house he just gets in her bed but our house by nature of the layout the stair gate stops him getting to our room. So he would need settling in his room but we've come on leaps and bounds and he regularly sleeps all night through. He never asked for mummy or cried coming over and recently he's been really excited to come over and always asking his mother when he's coming to dad's. His older brother was harder, he was four and few months when he started living here and is now nearly six. He did a lot of asking to for his mum and when was he going home and some crying over it in the beginning. It unsurprisingly seemed he would get emotional and want mum when we told him off for something but sometimes it was calm but constant asking when he could go home. We're miles from that now and he spends full weekends here without crying or asking for her. It was hard but it was all new for him and of course it was a huge adjustment so we knew it would take time and patience and things are much better now.
This last week or so though the youngest has been very moody, attitudey and temperamental, having a tantrum or crying fit at the drop of a hat, even just asking him to come brush his teeth let alone telling him off for something. He's melting down at the slightest inconvenience and mostly when we say more to more video games as if we didn't he'd literally play them 24/7. With all of this comes almost hysterical cries for mummy, which is completely new. I get that he's still so young and kids deal with things the way they do and they can be up and down. But this seems out of nowhere, he's always been a right daddy's boy too but at the moment seems to not want to be around either of us (I have a good bond with the boys). The littlest thing sets him off and we've had a full weekends of tantrums and meltdowns and calling for mummy over and over like 4/5 times a day. Thing is I've noticed, soon as I leave the room he'll stop and if I go back in he starts up again. I've tried sofly softly with him but everything sets him off. I've tried lots of hugs and affection and telling him it's ok and he'll see mummy soon but I'm now realising it actually just feeds the meltdown as opposed to soothing him. I know I shouldn't take it personally but the way it's come out of nowhere when he's had over a year and a half of seeming to settle in well so it happening now feels like such a rejection of me and his father and our home.
I feel like we're letting him get away with stuff he shouldn't because of the tantrums, which we worked hard on breaking him out of in the beginning. But those tantrums were him not genuinely in distress, short lived and never about mummy, just annoyance that we wouldn't give him another biscuit type of thing. But these tantrums are emotional and will go on and on sometimes and because his whole attitude is sulky I feel we're tip toeing around him. I don't want him to relearn that behaviour with the now more distreasing and effective factor of shouting for mummy. At the same time I'm so loathed to see him so distressed when he's going through it that I'm doing anything avoid it.
This is a massive ramble but it's been so emotional and such hard work and I'm at my wits end with it.