Constant Tantrums Evenings

Hi all, I'm wondering if this is a stage Kat will grow out of or what? Every evening she's throwing tantrums. Constantly! I get NO peace what so ever from them. It doesn't matter if I'm paying her attention or letting her explore on her own. If I leave her sight off she goes, if I don't pick her up, off she goes....and the list goes on. She'll throw a tantrum because the ball doesn't roll the way she wants it to and there is NO reasoning with her. I have tried helping her, hugging her, talking it thru with her, giving her time out, panadol just in case she's in pain and can't get it thru to me. I'm at a loss what else to do!! I've tried giving her an extra nap (in afternoon) and she goes down well enough but wakes up in an even worse mood! I took her for a walk in the park across the road and we played soccer till she got tired and crawled into the parcel tray under jess' pram and it got dark, that hasn't worked either. I've tried giving her a snack or a drink and that doesn't help! Any advice would be much appreciated!! I feel so snowed under when she gets like this! I am only just holding my marriage together at times (moving etc has created so mcuh stress between Dh and Myself ATM, but we never argue in front of the kids) and Kat screaming the house or street or supermarket down doesn't help!This started even before we moved so it's not the moving that has upset her either..... I don't know what else to do!
Please Help!!

Aww Kerrie - huge hugs matey! I know how hard it is when they are tantruming and you just can't pinpoint why - I know it has made me feel like a colossal failure - like I don't know my own child and how to help, soothe etc etc!

I'm just wondering - is it possible that Kaitlyn is going through a developmental milestone right now? Is she trying to learn new things etc? I know for Jacob, the communication issue was HUGE and was unfortunately the major reason behind tantrums that lasted around 6 months! (No joke!) He would tantrum virtually all day long - out of sheer frustration and anger at not being able to communicate effectively and to be understood by us. It was terribly hard - I felt like I could do nothing right. On top of that, he was teething which didn't help, but I'm certain the biggest issue was communication. It disrupted everything - normal activities that he would usually really enjoy suddenly became upsetting for him, eating became a major battle, as did bedtime and sleep (some of these things we still battle with, but not all at once IYKWIM - well not most of the time, and generally we can now identify more clearly what the problem is).

I have to say in all honesty, it literally changed OVERNIGHT for him. One day he went to bed cranky as was the norm at that point, and the next day he woke up delightfully happy and seemed to have overcome this communication hurdle - he started spitting out words/sounds that we could readily understand and respond to - the end result was that he felt like he could communicate and be understood by us and therefore there was much less frustration on his part and he started to find enjoyment in activities again.

I'm not sure if communication may be the issue with Kaitlyn......there may be something else that is bothering her?

We also found with Jacob that there were certain triggers, such as tiredness, hunger, thirst etc so we had to work on jumping on those things before the tanties struck (easier said than done sometimes!)

Seriously, I do sympathise, truly....I wish I had the answers, but all I could do was to do my best to get through each day as it came (and I shed a lot of tears!)

Not sure if this has really helped you any - but it DOES get better in time! :)

Melinda, I find myself wondering if it is communication too. Sometimes I feel she is TRYING so hard to tell me what she wants but because she can't say the words and I can't read her mind I have no hope and so we end with a tanty. I have taught her how to sign for food and drink, but she has stopped using this and I have to use my intuition as to when she is hungry or thirsty. I find if I do something she wants to do the same so I try to make sure her sippy cup is always full and she has good snacks when I suspect she's hungry. I think a lot of it is her age. She's starting to want to do things independantly and be a big girl, she doesn't understand why I tell her no she can't walk on the road etc and her only way of saying but mum I wanna is to throw a tanty. At the same time it is horrible and tiring to try to guess what she wants and try to work out why she is throwing them. Sometimes there is no reason I can see except she is angry/upset at that moment. It must be hard for her to be starting to expirience a wider range of emotions and have no way of telling us what she is feeling....
I do try to be patient, but it's hard when it goes all evening. Oh her other trick is deliberately treading or hitting or kicking her little sister Jess. She gets a light tap on the bum and put in time out for hurting jess. She knows it's wrong, but she seems to enjoy doing it anyway....?

Argh I just typed a rather large post & its gone :(

Have a read of my de-brief, you are not alone. *hugs*

Mel has said so much of what I was thinking. Its very hard.... Matilda started doing mean behaviour to our dogs at the same age as Kaitlyn. We started using time-out because that was effective for her. We do it pretty full-on. We get down at Matilda's level & tell her that hitting/biting/scratching another being is wrong behaviour and that because she has done it she has to go straight to time-out (no warnings because we are so serious about this) she has to stay there for 2 minutes (we set a timer) and when it goes off we come over & sit next to her & say "Matilda, we love you very much, it makes me sad to see you hurt XXXX. Can you please tell XXX you are sorry for hurting her & then we can sit & have a cuddle & read a story together" She now says "yep" and runs over to the dog & gives a pat & then runs back to us smiling. Other behaviours that are dangerous to her but she is being persistent at we give a warning & tell her that it is wrong to do A because she could get hurt. And when she finishes time out for not listening to us we always say that she is in time-out because she didn't listen to Mummy when she was told not to do A.

Does all that make sense? LOL... we are still working on this, but so far this has worked the best for all of us in keeping sanity in our house. I find the most important things we do is tell her what she did that was wrong, but let her know we love her but don't like the behaviour & always finish in a cuddle/kiss and positive attention.

As for tantrums.... well.... some days things are good and distraction works, other days she does self harm and has to be in her room and I sit outside and cry, other days I cry with her.

We do time out like Christy does also, Kerrie. It's been very effective for Jacob and the maximum amount of time he spends in time out is 2 minutes.

It will depend on the seriousness of the behaviour as to whether he is put straight into time out, or whether he is given a warning. Like Christy does, hitting etc isn't acceptable, so it generally happens straight away (although I must admit at times he's been given a warning first). Other times, we always give a warning first, e.g. "we don't throw our toys Jacob, you could hurt somebody. If you do it once more, you will have time out". Then we follow through if it happens again. Once the 2 minutes is up, we get him out and ask him to say sorry, give a kiss and a cuddle and then move onto a different activity to what caused the behaviour in the first place....

Kerrie what you've said is right, in that they are learning SO much about the world and are feeling a whole stack of different emotions and they simply don't know how to handle it a lot of the time - it's only through us as parents talking about our feelings (e.g. when I'm happy, I smile, when I'm upset, I cry kind of thing) and also demonstrating that there are consequences to our actions (i.e. that things we do have an impact on others) that they begin to understand a better way in which to respond to their feelings IYKWIM?

Honestly I know how hard it is to try to remain patient when it's a constant battle - it's so hard and I shed so many tears over this! Just be assured that you're not alone!

Thank you girls so much. I also get down on her level and explain to her why she's in trouble and after things calm down a bit, I give her cuddles and kisses to let her know we do love her. I always explain things and reinforce that we love her cause I know what it's like to think because someone is angry at you or you've done something wrong, that they don't love you anymore. It's not something I ever want my kids to feel.
I can see the sense in what you are saying and I am mostly doing what u suggested. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. The cute thing is, if she hurts someone, she always gives them kisses and cuddles better *L*.

Sounds like you a being very consistent & comforting to her. ITs so hard isn't it? I hope that she settles down & learns to communicate what she is wanting/feeling for you. I know that on good days Matilda seems able to communicate what she wants a lot better & I seem to be able to understand her as well.

thank you so very much for your support girls. I truely love how everyone supports everyone else here on Belly Belly. It is GREAT to know I am not alone in this and that she WILL outgrow it one day