Pleassse tell me there is an easy solution to this *sigh*

Ok, so dd is in the process (again) of getting her molars, first ones. I know they come up and down before they actually cut. When I put my finger in her mouth I can feel it just there kwim. And so she's got a bit of nappy rash because of it, fair enough be a little bit cranky. But for the past 2 weeks it has been spawn of the devil I swear! Some days she'll be ok, bit grizzly. DD's godparents live next door (we're in a unit complex) and "J's daughter is 4. The other day, while we were both in our own homes mind you, the girls went tantrum for tantrum all day. By time our hubbies got home we were ready to just run for the hills. It was the hardest day i've had to date with her. But it wasn't just that one day. We're going through this thing atm where it's like she's got her bloody ears painted on. Just NOT listening. Now my child knows what "no" means and she has for a very long time. When I am telling her not to do it she just looks at me and smiles. I swear if I have to say no anymore today I will scream. I am exhausted. She climbs on the bloody glass coffee table and I tell her to get down, get off etc nope she doesn't give a rats and continues to do it it's driving me bonkers. And dinner, christ don't be started on that one! After every meal I have to pretty much sweep and mop just her area because why would we eat the food when we can just throw it on the ground?! She knows she's not allowed to, cause once again we're smiling while we do it. Then there is the pinching and the biting and the HEADBUTTING i swear I thought she broke my nose yesterday. PLLLLLEEEASSSE tell me I am not the only one going through this, is it just a phase?

Its a phase - toddlerhood.

Can't tell you when it ends though cos I have one still going through it at 2.5 years and one just starting.

Bring her over here and we'll have triple the fun.. LOL

It must be the day for it! (or something in our SE Qld weather, :redface:)

DD has been defying everything I say today and has got worse since DH went to work at lunch time (well except for our hr and a bit nap)..


She was trying to write on walls and tip her food out.. I would say no twice and she would laugh at me, and as soon as I would start walking towards her, she started running.. Knew she was in trouble..

I think they are just learning their boundries and seeing how far they can push us.. I do try to distract her from her wrong doings, but being 36 weeks pg, I am just sometimes too tired...

Yup.....same here....only my 'ignorers' are 4 and 17mo......

i'm definately going thru this too.

ds doesn't throw food on the floor any more though and I found the best way to deal with that was to ignore it. I know its hard to ignore bad behaviour but I found that he did it more when we told him not too. So once we started ignoring the behaviour, he stopped doing it.

There isn't much you can do about tantrums, I find to help ds through it and explain why he can't do "whatever he is not allowed to do" helps him and his tantrums only last about 30 seconds tops.

Could you perhaps move the glass coffee table where she can't access it? Our ds is constantly standing on the couch, which is not allowed because he is sooo clumsy and he falls off onto his head. The way we deal with this is to send him to timeout for 5 minutes to give him time to calm down. It usually takes 2 goes at time out before he stops standing on the couch. Perhaps try timeout with your dd.

Timeout can be anything from sitting in the highchair, or going to his room to play or watching a dvd, just something to get him to calm down and forget about standing on the couch.

Headbutting is a big thing here too as is pinching, I haven't yet come up with a solution to that one so hopefully someone else can suggest something.

Good luck and remember it doesn't last forever (thats what I tell myself every day lol) :)

Same here...
MJ is climbing all over things and doing it all with a cheeky smile on her face, she knows that she is not allowed to do it, but kept doing it.

I lost my cool the other day when i found her on the computer desk playing with the fax - i only went to the toilet and she beetled off to climb while i was peeing :rolleyes: this was the third time for the day that she had been up there - each time i had take her off or got her to climb down and explained why she wasnt to climb up there...
Anyway so this last time i found her on there i told her off, more i yelled at her (which i am really not proud of :redface: as its not how i wasnt to parent - but lack of sleep and a bit of fear - its quite high up) then i stopped took her down (she was crying at this point) explained that it was dangerous and i told her that she had to go into her room.
I put her in there and closed the door and count to 30 (i think time out is a minute per year but 30secs was enough and i wasnt expecting to use T/O this early on) I went in and cuddled her straight away and talked about it again
She has never been up there again, nor has she done something similar.

Dont know if this is something that you are thinking of doning or would be appropriate. I did feel awful shutting the door, but im not a smacker and i think that she did need to learn a lesson.

I am finding the boundry pushing increasing diffult - especially on days when MJ has a biig molar movement :(

My solution:

No matter how tired you are, once you say no you must mean it. So go and remove the child and listen to the tantrum. I tell Liebling "I am not apologising for stopping you: I told you not to do it. You should listen to me. We have to do this now because XYZ/It is dangerous because XYZ."

I had a tantrum all the way home because I refused to let Liebling drive the car home. He played at driving for 15 minutes before I told him he had to go in his seat so we could go home because I needed to make dinner now. I had a tantrum earlier because he isn't allowed to explore where I can't see when I'm not following him: we were out with PiL, SiL, Niece and Nephew. So I couldn't just run off randomly all the time, he had to stay with us sometimes. BUT having said that, those were the first tantrums in about 3 weeks.

I do shout at DS sometimes when I'm cross. But I do apologise for shouting. Not for telling him no - for shouting. And I always ask him to apologise. Especially for hurting me. He says "sorry" and gives me a hug.

DS generally does as he is told to avoid the Lecture, I think. I gave him a 20-minute lecture a couple of weeks back as I pushed him home because he didn't look before going on the road - the BUSY main road with loads of cars on it. I was very cross he forgot all the road safety training we had done. He now stops and says "cars coming?" about 99% of the time now! I don't time out, I hold still and lecture. It really works. And my lectures are looooooong! They always end with "I love you" though - it's important that he knows his behaviour is sub-standard but he is still loved.

You are not alone ... I have two of them living here with me today too. I don't have any advice but I was so happy to read that other people get tired of repeating the same thing 5 million times a day. I am currently counting the minutes until DH gets home. I have banished both of mine to their beds with a few toys because I cannot do it at the moment.

Must be something about the weather . . . I hope things start to get better for you soon.

Its a full moon tonight. I try and keep track because my family always went a bit bonkers at full moon.

HTH

Try and remember as hard as it is its hard for them as hard as it is for us. I always try and think of it like this, we have had 20 something years experience in understanding emotion, working our resolution etc We are completely in control of our lives, we go to the toilet when we need to and we don't need help to wipe our butts. We can speak clearly and understand perfectly. If we want to do something we do it. If we don't want to do it we don't. They have to conform to rules they don't properly understand and often don't see alternatives to. They are trying to understand their own emotions and work out ways to control them, but its still hard. They've only been on this earth for a little while yet we expect them to understand, obey and be perfect. It just ain't gonna happen! Sorry! They need to tantrum to explore their emotions and so they can figure out within themselves what their alternatives are.

And really when we are feeling like crap about something what do we do? Go grab some chocky or a wine and have a good wine to our friends or loved ones... they can't even do this. So next time they are having a tantrum if you can't help them to stop, change your perspective because then at least one of you won't be having a melt down ;)

And I'm not saying to abandon boundaries, but a little understanding and empathy never hurt anyone yeah?

I have a child who understands the word "no" but largely ignores it. At 10 months old, I found her on top of the dining table. Underneath that is a concrete floor. Not a good combo.

She is now almost two and I can count on one hand the number of times, she has listened to "no" and I honestly don't have the energy to say no all day and to implement consequences. I just don't. I don't think it would be good for her to listen to no all day and it would make for a very frustrating day for me.

So the way I deal with it is to pick my battles. I only dole out consequences if she's doing something really dangerous. I figure that until she understands the "why" about why she can't do something, it's actually pointless (with her because she's very, very headstrong).

In the last couple of weeks though, I've happily noticed a change and she is much, much better at doing what I ask her to do. I just think she's getting better at understanding my explanations as her cognition has improved.