Is she a tantrumer during the day? High maintenance?
Hang in there I know it is hard and draining. Hopefully it is something transient that is bothering her and it will pass soon without becoming an ongoing issue xx
Sounds like your own resilience is at a very low level - that always makes things so much harder I hope things settle down a bit for you.
One thing that has helped with my little tantrumer, is to recognise that it's ok for her to express herself. She will learn in time a better way to do this (I hope!) and I try to keep calm (with mixed success, I must admit) to model better behaviour, but at the moment, she screams and yells and it's just noise. I try to only take action if someone or something is in harm's way when she gets physical. It doesn't stop her behaviour, it just helps me freak less.
Yes. Tantrums are through the day as well. & still very over the top compared to all my other kids & all other kids I know at that age. We have at least 5 - 8 through the day every day, as well as the 3 - 5 over night.
And yes... she is unbelievably high maintenance. To the point that its a running joke between most of my friends & I.
MadB - I'm pretty much the same. Its just through the night I have trouble. Especially while I'm sick.
I spent 5 weeks trying to cut her down to one feed in the early mornings & she wasn't having a bar of it. After 5 weeks of her still waking crying for a feed every hour or 2, I stopped feeding her completely & she slept through the very next night.
Over the next week she did wake still. Less & less each night, til she was only waking to come into my bed & I wouldn't even know. So to have her screaming for a feed the way she is again is confusing & frusterating. Its been over 3 weeks since she had her last feed.
This too shall pass. Eventually.
Last edited by ~clover~; October 17th, 2012 at 07:03 PM.
Sounds really tough Clover. Hope it improves for you soon.
No idea if this is something similar, but DS2 can be a challenging child. We certainly have our share of tanties during the day, and rebellious (for want of a better word) behaviour. For about the past 6-8 months he wakes during the night once every week or two and has a tanty. He screeches, whinges and whines, can throw his body around kicking and pummelling his bed and rejects all attempts to sooth him. When he's like this his answer to eveything is a very stroppy "no" (ie/ would you like a drink of water, are you hot etc ... "NO"). It used to do our heads in as we didn't know what caused it, but we've come to realise that he's not really awake when it happens. Kind of like sleep-walking, but appearing wide awake. He can go from full-on tanty to sound asleep in seconds - it's just a matter of us waiting it out, but normally he's asleep within 10-15 minutes. He can have a couple of these episodes a night, then nothing for a week or two.
My experience is probably completely different to your DD's, so I'm probably no help, but I do have a vague idea of where you're coming from.
All the best, xx
She sounds like my DS. We went though patches that lasted months of him having 5-6 tantrums a day, each lasting an hour minimum It really was hell. He did it from around 18 months until 3, with some clear times and then something would tip him over and we would start the cycle again. I had to get out of the house to as many activities as possible because he wouldn't tantrum in public and being at home it was a guarantee.
Do you think she may have SPD/ADHD? I only ask because I see your older daughter does and these things can occur more frequently in families. DS is my first kid so I don't think I was as aware of how completely OTT his behaviour was. Having my daughters has shown me how far from normal he was. My 3 year old has meltdowns but they are not even in the ballpark of what DS used to do (and still does!). I don't even think she would have tantrumed at all if she hadn't learned it from him. He has something going on that isn't neuro typical - a bit of sensory issue, a fair bit of anxiety, high IQ...nothing enough to be diagnosed with anything but many oddities that make him very hard work!
I have found sugar to be a trigger with my DS - if they have a treat at kindy I know that by 4pm he will be howling over anything trivial.
Does she self settle at all? Going to sleep at the start of the night by herself? Some of my DS's problem is that he cannot self regulate and calm/settle himself. Even after I night weaned him (in an attempt to get him to sleep longer than 2 hours) he still woke constantly and need a hug to get him back to sleep. As a baby the *only* way to settle him was to BF and as a consequence he never learned any method to do it himself - he would just get agitated and more upset and I would feed him to calm him down, continuing the cycle. That is one of the conclusions from the child psych we were seeing and explains why he couldn't stop a tantrum once it started.
Just chucking out any ideas that pop into my head, I have BTDT and I only had one other kid and a DH at the time.
Last edited by Artechim; October 17th, 2012 at 07:46 PM.
I know it is hard and draining. Hopefully it is something transient that is bothering her and it will pass soon without becoming an ongoing issue xx
2013 BellyBelly RAK Recipient.
It really was hell. He did it from around 18 months until 3, with some clear times and then something would tip him over and we would start the cycle again. I had to get out of the house to as many activities as possible because he wouldn't tantrum in public and being at home it was a guarantee.
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