DD won't listen.

[Party-of-five]

My 14month old daughter is driving me crazy she is getting into everything!!!!
today its the cabnet under the fish tank...she opens it gets the fish food out and runs, i take the food off her tell her no and then put it back, she goes back so i tell her no and move her away.she waits till im doing something goes back and get the food out
OH and the rubbish bin is another favorite. she knows she is doing something wrong because she takes things she knows she shouldnt have and runs under my ds bed...its a cabin bed and she knows i cant reach her under it.

I know no child is the same but omg she is so different to ds he just used to sit and play for hours...not Lucy she is not intrested in toys. I know i could get cupboard locks and draw locks but i just feel she should learn what she can and cant play with. There is nothing she can get into that could hurt her ive put all them things out of reach.
she walks around saying no no no because some days thats all it feels like i say to her
the thing that worries me the most is if i dont get this sorted now whats it going to be like once bub comes??

[[M]umma[M]ia]

i know exactly how u feel. DD plays with her toys.. mayb for 10 mins every day? the rest of the day she is running around like shes on speed, opening everything she can find and pulling everything out of the draws. If shes not doing that, shes running around turning everything off at the power points. She has a facination with the fish food too.. i just let her play with it now as it keeps her quiet for a little bit and its doing her no harm. Its tiring and u get sooo sick of saying no, dont and stop (which DD also tells me all day lol) as im typing shes walking around going "dont, dont, dont" lol.

so.. its either a girl thing, or just the age...

[{sarah}]

Oh I could have written your post word for word!! My little man was never into anything, but little miss my goodness, she is a terror. For peace of mind at 14 months she was the same at 14 months & now at almost 18 months she is finally starting to settle down a bit & listen better.

[Visitor7]

Well I think Emily is getting worse with age LOL. Right now, she's taking everything out of the pantry. If I stop her, then she'll just find another cupboard or something to pull apart She's like a hurricane. She walks through a room and just destroys it in matter of minutes!

[Turkish Delight]

It's okay, there is light at the end of the tunnel. They do settle down. My DD was like that too. All the teatowels used to come out and all the pots, pans, plastic bowls etc.. Now she is just over 2yo and she doesn't do it as often.

[BhoysGirl]

We had many of the same issues that started at about the same age. I basically removed everything that I knew I didn't want DS getting into, locked a couple of cupboards, put the rubbish bin in the laundry sink, then decided to let him explore as he needed to. I found that mostly he got bored with things after a few weeks, and then it wasn't such a problem. I still said "no" to things, but by removing what was important/dangerous, it just meant that I wasn't saying "no" for the entire day.

I think it's not so much that they don't listen, it's just that as toddlers, they don't have impulse control like adults do, it takes around 3 years and loads of parental patience & consistency for this to develop (according to Pinky if I remember correctly).