Weekend Tantrums...Toddler who wants full attention

PAP179

Do any of you have a toddler who seems to act up mainly when you are doing something other than playing with them? It seems that when DH & I are either cleaning or cooking or doing the other zillion things we have to do on the weekends  - he gets frustrated because he barely sees us all week and just wants to play.  I'd love to play and concentrate on him all weekend - but how is that feasible? I feel like I understand where he is coming from and he just doesn't know how to express it besides throwing random fits... He is 32 months old by the way...

KathrynMD

hocus:

Right now DH rarely both do something -- someone is always sort of around my daughter even if we aren't actively playing with her. So if my husband is cooking I'm available on kid duty. Now I will do really light house work like folding laundry because she can fully access me while I'm going it.

This is kinda what we do too.

We basically trade off.  I also try to give DD some really good quality time that she likes and I keep reminding her about it - like "we're going to the store and then we're going to ride your bike"  "once we're done at the store, we'll go home and ride bikes, remember?"  "yeah - thanks for being so good at Target, now let's go home and ride your bike!!"  I also resort to Dora when all else fails and I really need to get something done.

I try to find her things she can do independently too - that I can initiate, but don't have to actively participate - like Legos or coloring, stickers, etc.

My DH kinda sucks at the multitasking - so he ended up not eating lunch for 2 hours while I was out and he was home alone w/ DD.  I feel bad she's upset too, but eh, I'm not going to not eat, not use the bathroom for 2 hours just becasue she wants to be outside. 

Pesky

Normal.  Thank goodness DD is around to play with him but usually one of us is watching the kids while the other is cooking or doing whatever.  Occasionally I can get the kids to help, like carrying folded clothes to daddy to put in the drawer (DS could handle a pair of socks) but usually it is a tag-team effort.  

Floridamom224

we tag team it so one of us is around...but lately I have also been encouraging DS to do some more independent play...he is 4.5