advice- not wanting to leave the house!!

triplea1819

DS does NOT want to leave the house.  He refuses to get dressed, eat or do ANYTHING because he does not want to leave the house.  Every day is a struggle.  When we leav,e he is HYSTERICAL because he does not want to leave.

 Nothing seemed to have happened to set this off.  It started last week.  We obviously MAKE him leave because being in is not good.  He cries usually for 5 mins in the car, and then is ok. 

 I am at my wits end.  he refuses to change out of his night time diaper, change his clothes or anything!!!

phase, should I bring him to the dr to talk about anxiety? 

omurray

I don't have any advice, but I wanted to let you know that my DS went through that at about the same age.  It was strange and very frustrating for me.  We had recently moved to a new home when it started for DS, so I assumed it was related to moving, but who knows.  Anyway, he did eventually outgrow it.  I dont' remember anything in particular helping the situation.  Although, now sometimes if we have to go somewhere that he doesn't want to go, I offer to let him take a snack in the car and that helps.

MrsAmers

Sometimes it helps us to give DD choices - "You can take your clothes off or we'll take them off for you."  "You can choose your clothes and put them on or we'll do it for you."  "Here is your breakfast, you can choose whether to eat it or be hungry."  "You can put your shoes on and walk to the car or we can put them on for you and carry you."  Etc, etc.

We went through a lot of this with DD when DS came, but I think it is as much about the age as it is about life changes.

Also, can you choose one day a week to do exactly what he wants?  Let him stay in pjs all day, skip breakfast, stay home, etc.  If DD is being difficult on Saturday morning, we'll let her set the pace if we don't have to go anywhere.  Sometimes it means missing a nice day at the playground, but she doesn't get much time to play with her toys during the week and I think she just wants a day at home to play with her stuff.

SLM05

Sorry, no advice either.  DD is doing the same thing! It is horrible and breaks my heart because we have to go to daycare.  I plan to take DD to the dr. if it does not improve the next few weeks. But i like the advice form the PP about tletting dc sett the pace for one day and giving choices.  I will have to try it. 

triplea1819

today I tried the choice with clothes.  Pick what shirt you want to wear.  nope, wanted no shirt at all.  

My only thought was 2 weekends in a row, we got up, ate, and we drove to my parents house, about 90 mins away.  We played and I left him there. 

this started the Monday after we got home.  I am not sure if he thinks he is going back to grammy's and being left.. 

It is SOOO hard because most days we are doing something.  Today i had a moms club meeting, tomorrow is our transition to school, etc.. 

unfortunately i can not let him do the, if you dont want anything to eat, i wont make you anything.  because if that is his choice, right now, his choice would be starve!!  i am not joking.  I did that last week, and he ate 10 go gurts during the day and NOTHING else.  He ended up with a stomach ache!!! 

I am kinda happy to hear that others have gone through this, and it might just be a normal few week phase.

 

neverblushed

I wouldn't call the doctor yet.  Change and transition is hard for kids his age, and leaving the house is as big a transition as a toddler normally experiences in a given day.  Both my kids went through a similar phase.  Here are some things you can do to minimize struggle:

I would handle it calmly and give him just two choices at every point where a choice is acceptable.

Changing out of night diaper -- non-negotiable. get this done ASAP when he wakes up, while he's still groggy.  My kids always fought getting dressed MUCH harder if I let them sit around, watch cartoons, and eat before getting dressed.  Use TV and breakfast as the reward for good cooperation with getting dressed.  Offer choices like "blue shirt or red shirt?"

Getting out of the house -- whether you leave or not is non-negotiable, so give him a choice about how he leaves.  You can be extremely serious, or make it silly.  For instance:

"Would you like to walk out to the car, or would you like me to carry you like a baby?"

OR

"Would you like go get in the car like a kitty-cat -- meow! meow! or like a slithery snake -- hiss! hiss!"

Note that there is always the secret 3rd option, which is "If you don't choose kitty cat or snake, Mommy will pick you up and carry you to your carseat."

OR

"You can get in the car on your own, and I'll let you pick out a CD to listen to, but if you don't cooperate, I'll just listen to Mommy stuff on the radio.  Your choice big boy!"

While eating breakfast, go over your agenda for the day so he knows whether an outing is coming up.  As the morning goes by, remind him that you'll be leaving in terms he can understand.  Don't say "in 5 minutes."  That measurement means nothing to a toddler. Say, "we'll go at the end of Elmo's World" or "we'll be leaving after you put three more trucks in their garage."

Keep focused on the portions of the outing that will be fun for him.  Say, "Ooh, I can't wait to go to the grocery store because we can walk through the bakery and look at the fancy cakes.  Won't that be fun?"  Even if he says, "NO!" you can respond, "Well, Mommy thinks that will be really neat.  I can't wait to see those cakes." 

Make a note of how resistant he is now, then compare in six weeks.  I would be surprised if he is resisting with the same intensity at that time.

HTH!

neverblushed

triplea1819:

1.  today I tried the choice with clothes.  Pick what shirt you want to wear.  nope, wanted no shirt at all.  

2. My only thought was 2 weekends in a row, we got up, ate, and we drove to my parents house, about 90 mins away.  We played and I left him there. 

this started the Monday after we got home.  I am not sure if he thinks he is going back to grammy's and being left.. 

1.  Don't forget the "secret" 3rd option which is "If you refuse to choose, Mommy picks a shirt and wrestles it onto you as quickly as possible."  Don't wait for him to delay getting dressed by not making a choice.  If you slide him into a shirt of your choice a handful of times when he refuses a choice, he'll get it!

2.  You are feeling guilty and wondering if you are making things too hard for him because of the outings you've scheduled, aren't you?  Don't go down this road.  Guilt will cause you to waffle in your handling of his resistance, and it will take you both longer to work through this stage.  My bet is that he'd be resisting whether or not he'd spent the last few weekends at Grandma's and whether or not you had lots of errands to run.  This is such a common phase for kids to go through, I wouldn't blame it at all on recent activities.  He's probably just at the age where he's trying out his power on this issue.