2 1/2 to 3 yo, does anyone else's morning tend to go like this?

groovygrl

DD wakes up. Screams my name at the top of her lungs, sometimes gets up when I come in, sometimes won't. Refuses to sit on the potty. Refuses to let me take her diaper/pull up off. Finally lets me. Refuses to pick out underwear for like 10 min. When I say I'm going to get her brother, she screams at me to help her pick it out. Finally picks it out, refuses to put it on. Again, 10 min. Finally puts it on when I start to lose my sh*t on her that we have been dealing w/ her underwear for 20 min.

Meanwhile, DS wakes up. Whines, cries, kicks me while I try to change his super soaked diaper. Ask him to please brush his teeth. Screams, runs away, refuses to go in the bathroom. Finally have to pick him up & put him on his stool & attempt to run the toothbrush around his mouth, while still trying to get his sister to put her underwear on. Finally have underwear on, teeth brushed, both refuse to go downstairs. 

And on & on.

I realize this is terrible 2's, asserting independence, etc> I try to let them pick out clothes, make choices, do things in a different order (when possible) etc etc etc. But by 730 am I am already frazzled. When will this get better & what else can I do, they go to daycare 3 days a week so there is always a time crunch (plus I have to feed them bfast after all this which tends to be a 30 min process)...

Gah. Just needed to vent. Thx. 

royalcrown1

My twins are hitting the tantrum stage even though they are a bit younger than yours.  My recommendation is actually don't help her if she cries for a few mornings.  Leave the room and tell her she has to do it herself or stop crying.  After weeks, we have just hit the stage that when the twins (or my almost 3 year old) through a tantrum for no reason, we say "you cannot cry in this room, please leave and come back when you are done."  They usually go to the living room and cry, sometimes for a few minutes.  Sometimes they come back before they are done crying, but I send them right back.  When they finish crying and come back happy, we all give a big YAY and clap for the one who stopped crying.  It is making it so much easier than trying to talk to an irrational kid that is just throwing a tantrum.  I feel like if you let them cry for a few days and not help them until they stop (and I mean actually leave the room so they dont see you and are not still getting attention), over sometime the behavior will change - I hope.

Good luck.

groovygrl

Good ideas!!! It is not so much the crying though, I can ignore tantrums, it is just refusing to do anything I ask. She chose to spin in circles today instead of putting on the undies so I finally left to get her brother but she still didn't put on the underwear even when I left her alone & I had to ask her like 5 more times & I think I ended up putting it on her...sigh.

erinruns

My girls wake up and head straight for the living room to watch cartoons.  If I asked either of them to change clothes or go potty upon waking, I think I would have similar issues to you.  They're still sleepy, they're moving slow, and they need some time.  Can you get your kids up earlier so they don't have to get dressed immediately?

Do your kids *want* to pick out clothes in the morning?  If they don't, this is one choice I wouldn't give them.  It doesn't sound like they have any real opinions on it, so I would skip it.  My girls are four and I still pick out their clothes.  I may give them choices - this shirt or that shirt, pants or dress - but that's the extent of it.  Remember that choices shouldn't be open ended at this point, but a choice between two things.  I pick out their clothes the night before and lay them out on the couch.  Once I get my breakfast, they start getting dressed and hopefully, we're all out the door at the same time.

ramee151

When I was babysitting kiddos this age--I discovered choices were great, but too many choices created the same problem as no choice at all.

I'd try reducing her choices: would you like to brush your teeth or get dressed right now? Would you like to wear this blue underwear or this green underwear today? Screaming = a very calm, "it sounds like you aren't ready for Mommy to help you. We have to leave when the clock says X. If you can't make calm choices, Mommy will have to choose for you." and walk away for 5 minutes. 

groovygrl

erinruns:

My girls wake up and head straight for the living room to watch cartoons.  If I asked either of them to change clothes or go potty upon waking, I think I would have similar issues to you.  They're still sleepy, they're moving slow, and they need some time.  Can you get your kids up earlier so they don't have to get dressed immediately?

Do your kids *want* to pick out clothes in the morning?  If they don't, this is one choice I wouldn't give them.  It doesn't sound like they have any real opinions on it, so I would skip it.  My girls are four and I still pick out their clothes.  I may give them choices - this shirt or that shirt, pants or dress - but that's the extent of it.  Remember that choices shouldn't be open ended at this point, but a choice between two things.  I pick out their clothes the night before and lay them out on the couch.  Once I get my breakfast, they start getting dressed and hopefully, we're all out the door at the same time.

He usually doesn't care so I always just pick his out for him. Today though he freaked when I tried to put jeans on so I let him go pick out stuff (definitely only give a couple choices, esp once the pants were picked out, I chose 2 shirts for him). She definitely DOES care about the underwear & I have tried to give choices b/w 2, 3 all of them, force one on her, etc. They don't get their regular clothes on til after bfast b/c of the spilling/mess factor but I try to pick them out while we're still upstairs to save time once bfast is over. Nothing seems to work consistently & it makes me nuts. Maybe tomorrow I'll try not changing her right away and maybe the night before choices too....see how it goes!

I could get them up earlier but welllllll I like to sleep too and also they still wake up in the night almost every night so I never get a good night's sleep. Sleep is a big time issue in our house since they were born so when I can get zzz's, I do. I should probably get up earlier though, I know.

regenab

Well I think there are 2 things you can try, this will depend on your child and what type of personality they have. One, you can try doing positive motivation such making a game or competition out of getting up and getting herself ready in the morning. Such as lets see how fast you can get yourself out of your wet pull up and on the potty to pee before Mommy can get your brother out of his diaper. Tell her if she beats you then she gets to put a sticker on her chart (make up a big poster board chart with stars and stickers she likes on it with her name and she can color on it if she likes. Make up boxes for the different things you want her to do in the morning such as, picking out panties/putting on panties and a box for brushing teeth. If you make it a race game in the beginning she might get in the habit of doing it herself and then it can just be a reward for putting a sticker on if she does it herself without whining and constant prompting. If she can fill her boxes on the 3 days you need her to do this tell her you will take her someplace special on the weekend for being such a big helpful girl. You could just take her to the park for play and a picnic lunch just you and her if your DH can take your son for a couple of hours.

Second thing you could do if she is not the kind of kid to get the above system (some kids are too young for this and need to be more like 3-4) you can do the countdown with natural consequence approach. You go in the morning ask her to take off pull up and sit on the potty if she whines and refuses, set an egg timer for 5 min. and tell her she has until the timer goes off to complete the task or you will do it for her and she doesn't get to pick out her panties for the day. Then let her alone and go take care of your DS. If she doesn't get the attention she may just do the task. If the timer goes off and she has done nothing, you take off the pull up and walk her to the bathroom and pick out her panties. Don't talk or engage her at this time because that is what she wants to get you upset. Then get her dressed, ask her to brush her teeth and set the timer again for say 3 min., if she doesn't brush her teeth tell her when the timer goes off you will have to do it for her. Again if she doesn't complete the task don't engage her just go on about your morning and dealing with your DS.

The second approach is a little harder because it requires a lot of patience on your part to hold back and not getting into it with her because morning is a stressful time. Also I would recommend starting earlier in the morning at first so you have the extra time to let her go a bit on her own time before you have to make her do it on your time. You could try integrating both methods by using an egg timer so she can see how much time is left and use the reward system to encourage her to do the morning routine more independently. I would probably do either method all 5 days so it is more of a habit for them then an every other day kind of thing. My girls go to preschool 2 mornings a week, at the beginning of the school year I went to a strict routine of bedtime at 8:30pm and wakeup at 7:30am all 5 mornings during the week because I wanted them to get into a good routine and stick with it, no back and forth on non-school days.

It is a really tough age and I can't promise you it will get easier in a year, we still have difficult times, especially when it comes to cleaning up toys and eating supper. But they do really start to get the reward/charts system a lot better at 3 1/2-4.

iamnotyou

My girls will be 3 the end of August.  They are more morning people than my older daughter but they still require some wake up time.  They crawl out of their cribs and come to my room when they wake up.  I turn on a show for whomever is in there first, but I'm in my bathroom getting ready at this time.  I let them watch tv/wake up for a bit. I then give them their clothes (that I laid out the night before) and tell them to get dressed and then they get breakfast.  Sometimes they get dressed right away, sometimes they take 5 or 10 minutes.  Sometimes they go to the bathroom before they get dressed, sometimes they do after (they've been potty trained day and night since 2 so I completely trust them to go when they need to at this point).  Then we get breakfast and leave. 

keg

Yep, sounds like a lot of mornings in this house. :-)  The good thing is is that it's a phase, like most things.  Mornings have seemed to get much better recently.  Picking out clothes used to be quite the ordeal, but they have gotten much better and if I say "Go pick your clothes", they often do it!  (Both of mine have definite opinions in terms of what they wear.)  They also have started to prompt me on what I need to do next, like their hair...or "Mom, you forgot your purse" when we leave the house.  It still seems to take forever to get out of the house, but at least it's not continual screaming like it used to be. 

My girls seemed to take turns a lot in terms of who was the fussy one, so I'd just try to deal with the rational one and ignore the other one.  Also, I seemed to have luck one morning where I said that you can watch Dora when you are all ready (Dora is a huge motivator in this house).  

I'm very thankful that for the most part I don't have to worry about breakfast (thank you daycare for doing breakfast!), but if I need to get out of the house quickly (like to church), I'll often do car friendly breakfasts like a snack cup of dry cereal, a sippy of milk, and a piece of cheese or a little box of raisins.  May not be the healthiest, but it reduces the chaos a little.    

missfire

My 3 1/2 year old seems to take a lot more effort than my 1 year old twins! It has been a battle for a long time, and it is worse when I am tired or stressed (which is most days). 

One thing I keep meaning to do is to put together a morning chart with pictures of what we do, in what order, every morning. DS is a stickler for routine with a lot of things, and I know he would do better if it weren't always me being his taskmaster. If I could just remind him "What comes next on the chart?" I think things would go more smoothly.

 TV is a really powerful motivator for DS too. I won't turn on Dora or Super Why or whatever his current favorite is until he has gone potty and gotten up to the table for breakfast. I'll let him watch while he eats, and I try to get the babies fed and dressed while he watches his show. 

I have had good luck with some weird motivators too. One thing that surprisingly worked is that I would pick out one of his match box cars and have him show his car how he goes potty, how he gets dressed, what we see in the car on the way to preschool, etc. He gets bored of these things quickly, so they only work for a few days in a row, but sometimes a few days with less struggle goes a long way for my mood!