See, there you have it - you're an amazing mum! They can't all be wrong can they? You just also happen to be sleep-deprived which is the worst thing. It is the most effective form of torture.

If you want my experience ......
DS2 through a really bad stage of biting, hitting and massive melt-downs. He also wasn't sleeping at night properly with constant wakings (after finally getting him down) At its worse I had picked him up from childcare to find out that he'd had 3 biting incidents, plus pulled another child's hair and pushed someone else over. He hadn't had a daytime nap and, by time I got him home he was in full on meltdown. After googling all night I looked at his chart from the previous day. In a space of 12 hours he'd had:
  • Weetbix for breakfast
  • Scones with jam for morning tea
  • Spaghetti bolognaise for lunch
  • Fruit with yoghurt for afternoon tea
  • Arrowroot biscuits for a snack


Basically, he'd had sugar, sugar with sugar, sugar, sugar with sugar and, sugar!

I read every label on everything I gave him. No more sauce (for dip-dip), no more jam (although I have recently relented and bought the one with the low sugar), no sugar on anything (plain weetbix are a treat), scrambled eggs or baked beans for breakfast and cut down his fruit intake to only one piece a day (or two half pieces). It took about three days before I noticed a (slight) difference and a week or so before I noticed a definite difference.

They have remarked on his improved behaviour at childcare - they worked with me on this. And, he will have a 2 hour sleep during the day and will go to bed at 7.30 and sleep until around 5 (sometimes he wakes up but will either play in his room until he falls asleep again or, come into bed with us).

I know that if he has a hot chocolate or a piece of cake or another sweet treat that he will be in meltdown mode within a couple of hours. I don't deny him his treats but they don't occur on a daily basis.

The other thing that I found worked with him is when he's in the middle of a moment I get to his eye level and hold up my hand and say, "Stop. Take a breath". I'll repeat this in a calm voice until he stops crying and he takes a breath. Then I ask him to use his words and tell me what's wrong.

Of course it doesn't always work but it mostly does.