I need help

[Miss E]

DS has developed some very destructive behaviour over the last two or three weeks which I'm really struggling to deal with.

I think the cause of it is tiredness. He's getting to a stage where he doesn't need to be having a nap every day. This has meant that there have been a whole host of inconsistencies come into our nap time routine. For the longest time I rocked him to sleep at nap time, but then he started wanting to go to sleep by himself in the bed. This was fine with me. About 50% of the time he would go to sleep no problems, but there were/are some days where he doesn't need/want a nap. On those days I've been encouraging quiet time in his bed and giving him a stack of books to read. To begin with this worked really well, I'd tell him he needed to stay in bed until mummy came to get him and he was happy to sit there and read his books. But... a couple of weeks ago he decided it was more fun to start trashing his room. He will kick the bed rails off, throw books and toys everywhere, climb his furniture, whatever it takes to get out of there and not even attempt a nap. Now here's the clincher, he's at daycare 3 days a week and goes to sleep all by himself, every day...

Now, I'm finding that he is beginning to take great delight in being destructive at other times. I'm a big believer that there is always a reason behind negative behaviour, and I honestly believe that most of time this is brought on by tiredness or on the odd occasion to get attention.

The problem is that my usual techniques just aren't working and to break the behaviour I am resorting to yelling to stop it. I don't like to yell at him, it makes him cry, and while it may be effective right now at stopping the behaviour I am under no illusion that it is by any means going to be a long term solution.

Usually I approach these sort of things by picking him up and removing him from the situation and then talking about why we don't do these things (eg. we can break our toys or even worse somebody could get hurt etc etc). I'm reading PET at the moment so am also using some of those techniques (this behaviour made me feel etc), which we're having great success with in other areas, just not this one. When I try these in this situation he starts hitting, kicking, pulling my hair (all while laughing) to get me to put him down so he can resume it.

So I think the first problem I need to solve is the nap one. I just have no idea where to start...

And, I need some help developing tools/techniques/discussions for addressing the destructive behaviour when it does happen.

Oh, and this is all compounded by the fact that we're having a baby in 2.5 weeks (which could very well be contributing to this). I fear that if we can't get on top of it now it is only going to get worse when bubs arrives...

Thanks for reading... Any ideas, insights, suggestions (or hugs) would be very much appreciated.

[peanutter]

hugs!!!!





no ideas though, sadly

[grub17]

can you remove everything from his room, lock cupboards etc and only give him a couple of cardboard books? tell him why and if he stays in bed quietly resting for a couple of days will be allowed to choose another toy to take into the room for his rest.
My son was doing this a lot, he was younger than your boy, and I just had to remove all missiles and climb-ables. Only now can he be trusted to not go nuts... so the toys are out int eh family area and he can select a few special toys to take to bed. If i hear trucks being driven along walls or being used as missiles, I simply go in, tell him that is not on and if he does it again he will lose the toy. The follow through is the clincher tho and unfortunately it does cause tears but they often subside quickly after the toys has been removed and forgotten.

If he tears his bed apart, I make him help me make it and talk about why we don't pull all our bedding apart.

So just remove the objects of the behaviour rather than him iykwim

[HotI]

I reckon the new baby on its way is probably a big contributor. Little people pick up on changes, even if they can't verbalise it. ALso (i don't know if you want to hear this) even if you get things sorted out now, they may start up again when baby arrives.

I don't know if this is the right way, but with my DD (before DS arrived) we just tried to re-direct attention, and tried to do fun active things with DD to enjoy the last few weeks as a family of 3.

Is there somewhere else he can nap that he can't trash? Maybe letting him sleep/rest in a spare room or in your bed.

it is tough

[~me~]

This is something someone else suggested on a group I am in on FB..it made great sense.

She explained something that works for her kids rather than time out. She has a "happy room" (spare room with very little in it!), whenever her kids show bad attitude or surly behaviour they get sent to the "happy room"!! theres no time limit....but they must come out with an improved attitude or they go back to the room until they come back out "happy".

I am not sure if this is something your little man would understand, it does sound great though.

[Arcadia]

I started to take dd for a walk in the pram or drive in the car at nap times at that age. She hasn't napped in a bed since, but will transfer out of the car (so wont fall asleep on a bed in the day).

When baby comes things will be different anyway, so I would just try and go with the flow. Fwiw me dd was shocking in the final weeks of my pg...whining, clinging, tantruming etc.

[FabFiona]

Your son and mine could be the same. When I was in the lead up to having a baby my son was 18 months and he turned into an absolute feral. We tried everything to sort it out.

Unfortunately, it seems that only time and growing up has really helped. My LO is now 9 months and he is nearly 2.5 and he's much, much better.

I agree with the others. Clear out his room and see if that helps.

For your own sanity, focus on the areas that you are having the success with. With the baby coming, you really need to keep a good headspace. I know it's hard though.

[Lolpigs]

can you remove everything from his room, lock cupboards etc and only give him a couple of cardboard books? tell him why and if he stays in bed quietly resting for a couple of days will be allowed to choose another toy to take into the room for his rest.
My son was doing this a lot, he was younger than your boy, and I just had to remove all missiles and climb-ables. Only now can he be trusted to not go nuts... so the toys are out int eh family area and he can select a few special toys to take to bed. If i hear trucks being driven along walls or being used as missiles, I simply go in, tell him that is not on and if he does it again he will lose the toy. The follow through is the clincher tho and unfortunately it does cause tears but they often subside quickly after the toys has been removed and forgotten.

If he tears his bed apart, I make him help me make it and talk about why we don't pull all our bedding apart.

So just remove the objects of the behaviour rather than him iykwim

Yeah this sounds like what I would try. Even though I am not there yet, I would say that sounds right that he is picking up on the fact the new baby isnt long to be here and is trying to express things he cant yet.

Extra time with him before bubs arrives might help too. We are going to TTC mid to end of this year and I'm anticipating the same sort of behaviour from DD, just becuase she already now gets frustrated with things she cant express yet.

[Miss E]

thanks so much for your hugs and replies. It really helps to hear that I am not alone, and also that many of you had to deal with some hideous behaviour before bubs arrived too (of course I mean that in the nicest possible way )

We don't really keep much in his room anyway, all the toys other than the soft ones are in playroom, but this afternoon I have taken everything off of his dresser and removed all books etc (aka missiles) from his room.

We're now too days in a row without a nap and this afternoon has been pretty horrid. Tomorrow he has to have a nap. Hopefully I can get him to go to sleep in his now missile free room, otherwise I think I'm just going to pop in the car and drive around the block a few times.

Once again, thanks so much ladies.

[wysiwyg]

DD is also dropping day naps, so I do like you said and if is a day where I really really need her to have one as has missed a few days (she sleeps at childcare 2 days a week no problem ) I either arrange to be driving back from somewhere as she will sleep in car or I lay down with her and we both nap (DS too).

[Catherine]

Hi Miss E

I think it is probably that he is picking up on your starting to go inward in readiness for the baby (VERY normal).
For me, I found that it was me who needed my firstborn to take the nap, because I was tired. I needed a break. So I would put on a video or read with her, either cuddling on the lounge or in my bed and use 'quiet time' to reconnect and talk about the baby in a positive way. Sometimes I would hold a doll and explain that I would need to feed the baby alot, but that we could still be together. If we both fell asleep - great. If not, at least I had had a rest.
Your little guy could be saying (in the only way he knows how) I neeeeed you mum!
Have you got books about a new baby coming? Has he got a doll? Have you had him help you sort the baby clothes and talked about what life with a new bub is like? Does he seem interested?

Look after yourself xoxox

[grub17]

i should also add taht just after dd arrived about the time ds hit 19 months, he started needing us to sit in his room with him while he went to sleep. usually only took 5 mins and we did this for months. i think it was an insecurity thing with him. by the time he turned 2 he was quite happy to be left to nod off by himself (albeit with a light on!). it actually worked out fine with DD as i could rock or feed her while sitting with DS. or she was asleep, or happy to wait on the floor for the 5 mins it took

that might be another way to stop the destructor!!!

[onthefly]

can you take him out somewhere to run off steam instead if nap isn't happening? maybe he'll fall asleep in the car on the way home?

[FabFiona]

How goes it today? Any sleeps?

[Miss E]

Thanks for checking in FabFiona.

All I can say is, oh what a difference a sleep makes! On Sunday we drove around in the car until he fell asleep and then transferred him inside. He was like a different child that afternoon! Back to his usual happy, easy going self, which was wonderful. And yesterday I had success getting him to go to sleep in his own bed. I cleared all the stuff from his dresser and books etc out of his room the other day, so that all that was left was soft toys. He had his Buzz and Woody in bed with him and I basically said that he could have them sleep with him, but it was sleep time, not play time. If he was playing with them then I was going to come back in and take all the toys away so that he could have a sleep. Sure enough 5 minutes later I could here Buzz being banged around, so went in and reminded him that it was sleep time etc etc. And... believe it or not he went straight to sleep!

I really don't like using threats, but at this point I was desperate. I'm hoping that we can get back into the swing of things. He's at CC the next 3 days (which does make establishing a new routine tricky), so will have to see how we go on Friday... It seems if he misses a nap on one day he's fine, but then if it's two days in a row he turns into this crazy little hyperactive drunk person, who you can't reason with. So, my plan is to go back to trying to get him to have a nap every day, even if it means getting in the car and driving around the block for awhile.

Thanks for all your help lovelies!

[FabFiona]

Sounds good.

Does he fall asleep in the pram? Once the baby arrives keeping up the car trip tactic might be challenging. I find it a pain in the bottom to load everyone in and out.

When we have sleep refusal days and I can see that he really needs one, I pop everyone in the pram and off we go. A quick trip around the block and normally he's out. I can then drive the pram right up to his bed and it's much easier to transfer him into his bed.

FWIW I don't think what you did is a 'threat'. It's setting boundries and very, very clear consequences.

Something else I'm mentally preparing both of us for is the dropping of the sleep all together. My son likes watching movies (mainly Thomas and Wiggles) on the iPad so I'm thinking that as he refuses sleep more and more I will let him watch a movie on the iPad in his bed. Once when he wasn't going to sleep after about 45 minutes I gave him the ipad and within 10 mins he was asleep.

Anyway, hope all goes back to normal after the child care days.

[Miss E]

Sounds good.

Does he fall asleep in the pram? Once the baby arrives keeping up the car trip tactic might be challenging. I find it a pain in the bottom to load everyone in and out.
.

Yes, I am wondering how we will manage when bubs comes. He will on occassion fall asleep in the pram, but has to be really exhausted (like at 3.30pm)... I figure for the time being we'll just go with the flow. DH is taking 4 weeks off when bubs arrives, so for the next 6 weeks or so we can just do whatever we need to do... Once he goes back to work I'm hoping we'll have well established routine again (but who knows). I was actually thinking that if we're still struggling I might try putting them both in the pram and going for a good walk in the hope that they'll both sleep at the same time.