Terrible twos?

orangecrush32

I just had baby number two. She'll be two weeks old on Thursday. We have a two and a half year old who has been potty trained for a few months now.

She has now decided it's fun to be bad and poop/pee in her pants. She is unaffected by time outs and having things taken away. We've resorted to spanking but it doesn't work either. Yesterday she walked over to me and bent over and said spank me mommy I'm bad.

I assume she's acting out because of the new baby but I don't know what to do. I've tried to spend special time with her and have her father do so as well. She loves her baby sister and just wants to hold/kiss/hug her all day. I am at a loss. I have no clue how to get my good little girl back.

Bigboobsmcgee

I should probably ignore this post all together because I have the biggest anti-spanking soap box of anyone on TB but I'll try to help and won't touch the spanking stuff.

She's 2 1/2 so she should understand you pretty well when you talk to her right? Have you discussed this with her and talked to her about her behavior? She's not acting out because she's "bad", she's going through a huge change with a new sister and not being the center of attention anymore. That's pretty normal so spanking her or putting her in time-out isn't the best solution IMO.

This is most likely just a phase that will pass so stay consistent in how you choose to handle this. Redirect, ignore some of the negative behavior that can be ignored and don't lose your temper because that is attention and that's exactly what she wants right now.

orangecrush32

We have both talked to her and she understands. And then does exactly what we just asked her not to do. Today she looked me in the eye and pooped in her pants. how am I supposed to respond to that? I took the movie I had just bought her away and sent her to take her nap early. She thought it was funny.

Bigboobsmcgee

orangecrush32 said:

We have both talked to her and she understands. And then does exactly what we just asked her not to do. Today she looked me in the eye and pooped in her pants. how am I supposed to respond to that? I took the movie I had just bought her away and sent her to take her nap early. She thought it was funny.

You leave the poop in her pants and walk away. That would be my immediate reaction. She wants attention and even negative attention is good enough for her at this point. It sucks, I know, I've been there.

Keep taking things away, being consistent with consequences. I'm sorry, I know how bad it sucks. Toddlers can be awful.

g8trkim

I like the idea of leaving the poop... or at least trying that. I would keep a close eye though just in case she gets really sassy and turns it into a messy situation. At that age, the thing that worked with my son was taking favorite toys away. Every bad choice would mean taking a different toy. Good behavior would mean earning them back. We were in the same situation and tried spanking which totally didn't work either. I know it's super frustrating trying to find what works.

orangecrush32

Over the past several days we have ended up taking all her toys away. She literally just has a chair left at this point and she doesn't care. She's continuing to poop her pants and last night she decided to chew on the couch and slap me in the face.

We're doing time outs along with the taking of the toys and when she gets out of time out I call her over to explain why she was punished and she laughs/smirks at me and says she did whatever the behavior was for fun because she likes being bad. She literally has me crying anymore. I don't know what else to do.

Ya Never Know

When you potty trained her, did you do it with a reward system? We used to give DD an M&M if she peed/pooped in the toilet. She potty trained well, but a few months after she was fully trained, she started to regress and we went back to rewards for a few days and she stopped.

When she regressed it was only at night. She would pee her pants at night on purpose so that bed time would take longer. We told her if she went to sleep and peed in the toilet, she would get an M&M in the morning. I know your situation is different, but if reprimand isn't working, might be worth a try to find something positive to motivate her to getting back on the toilet.

KadzoKimbia

Have you tried positive reinfocement over negative? Kids this age dont fully understand negative attention. We try to concetrate on the things our 2.5yr old can do that his little brother cant because he is little. Try giving her special responsibilities and tasks that only a big sister can do.

Another thing is to focus on the behavior being bad not her. If she poops in the pants talk about how that is bad behavior. She is not bad! The behavior is bad! This will give her a feeling that she inately isnt bad but she made a bad decision. There have been lots of studies about this with kids who are told they are a certain way and later just adopt that persona becaus it is what people expect (shy, stupid, lazy, athletic, uncordinated, bad) all of these words can be taken very literally and they will take them to heart.

Potty regression is hard because all the effort has been put into potty training once. Good luck!!!