How to deal with shrieking...?

ECT2012

How do you deal with this lovely toddler behavior? We have been trying to wait until she calms down enough to sign "please" for whatever it is that she's shrieking about... hoping that if we do this enough she'll realize that the "please" thing will get her what she wants far more quickly than the screaming... but I wonder how other people deal with it? Ignore it? Pray that it's just a phase?

Thanks!!

maggie1526

My daughter is a shrieker too. How we deal with it really depends on why I "think" she's yelling. 

If it's a simple fix, like she's done eating and wants out of her highchair, I say no yelling and asks if she's all done. She usually throws her hands in the air and then I take her out. 

If she is upset I'm cooking dinner and not paying attention to her, I just ignore her. I might try to distract her with a utensil or singing songs, but if it's not working she's ignored. We all have to eat.

If she freaking out for no apparent reason, I'll usually walk away and start doing something fun - like flipping through her books - and she'll usually realize pretty fast that reading is more fun and come join. 

I'm not sure if this is a good way to handle it, as I've yet to see any improvements. She's a spirited baby, and I love that about her, but I'm hoping this will pass once she can communicate better. 

ChelsiAnn13

My LO has been screaming and shrieking so much recently her voice sounds froggy.

I put my finger to my lips and tell her that we don't yell/ whine. She needs to use we words. Once she realized I was going to ignore her until she used her words/ showed me what she wanted and of course used her manners she stopped. Now of course she still screams but it doesn't take even half the time to quiet her down.

If she is throwing a temper tantrum it depends why. If its for attention or something similar she gets ignored until she stops then we can talk about what she wants. If its because she is misbehaving I ask her to stop. If she doesn't she gets a warning and I ask her to use her words again. After that if it continues she gets a time out. She has only ever had one time out though.

Jen0204

DD2 is a screamer/shrieker.  It's starting to drive me slowly insane.  If she's screaming because I don't understand her or I feel like she can't communicate what she wants then I try to work with her to figure out what she wants and give her options.  Screaming out of excitement I try not to get annoyed about because she really doesn't have good ways to express herself yet.  I am trying to start broaching the concepts of inside and outside voices since we live in an apartment style condo but I think that's still over their heads.  I just said to H this weekend that if she is screaming because we told her no or won't let her steal her sister's toy or something like that, that's going to be a time out behavior for her.  She needs to understand that not only will the screaming not get her what she wants, but it will also get her a time out.  However, mine are also 5 months older which is huge at this age.  We only got serious about timeouts in the last month or so.