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Babies on the Brain
My toddler is driving me insane!
I need some major help/advice ladies. I don't know what to do with L, he's being a complete nightmare and I do not like his behaviour lately.
He has zero respect for his toys/books/etc. I realize he's 2.5 but he rips all his books, and today he managed to rip the street picture off of his train table (a very nice $200 train table!). Oh it made me so so mad. He was supposed to be napping in his room, which is majority of his problem - he doesn't nap. He's been a nightmare ever since he decided naps were for babies. I've already removed every single book from his room after too many of them were ripped, so now his books are stored in the den area and he gets to pick one to read before bedtime and then it gets taken back to the shelf.
Is this normal? Or do I have a monster child? I've tried ignoring him when he throws tantrums, I've tired time outs, I've tried getting him to nap, I've tried just about everyting and sometimes when DH is gone for days...I lose my mind. I hate to think of my child being a spoiled brat, but honestly I don't know how I managed to raise him to be like this.
I know he's missing his daddy, he has been gone since Sunday (work and now he's on a guys trip with his brother), and he will be home tomorrow night, but still - the kid needs to learn boundaries and respect. How do you teach a 2 year old that?? I had a complete meltdown on the phone with my mom today, so she came over to help me through the last couple hours before bedtime, and that definitely helped (my spirits more than anything), but I seriously dread the days DH is gone because it always seems way worse when theres only me to tackle him and B, and I think he's worse for just me anyway.
So there's no real point to this, I dont think theres any magical advice anyone can give me to make my child be a sweet boy again...I just needed to vent and get it out there. Sometimes I feel so alone and like I have to pretend I have it all together...when clearly I don't!
Cookies & Wine if you've made it through my ramblings!
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Re: My toddler is driving me insane!
Yes, timeouts, taking his books aways, etc. Not sure what other consequences I can do.
Those would be my suggestions. Unless there is a special show or toy he loves? I'd say, give a warning "if you continue to rip books, you will not get to watch ____ tonight." and follow through. Other than that, box up all the books until he is able to respect his belongings? 2.5 is old enough to understand no.
He doesn't have a show that he watches, not that i can "punish" him by taking away. Occasionally I'll put on Mickey or Elmo, but he wouldn't care if it wasn't on.
He definitely understands no, and he understands when I'm mad...but for some reason I can't get it through his head that these things are not okay. I don't know if he's doing it for attention (which I guess it's obvious he is). The only thing that's changed recently is that B crawls and is into his stuff and "playing" more, which means playing with his things and taking toys he likes. But she's a baby...cant punish her for that! So maybe now that she's mobile and active he's getting more jealous? We didn't really go through a jealous phase when she was born, he was only 19 months so pretty young, I don't think he even really understood at the time.
ETA: Your other suggestion was to box up all the books until he can learn to respect them - I don't really like that idea because I want him to like to read, and it's part of his bedtime routine. I don't want to take all books away. He doesn't rip them now because he's not "alone" with his books. Basically there are no toys in his room, which is where most of the destroying is done, when he should be napping. The table is something we haven't removed, because I honestly didn't think he would be able to ruin it!
As you already know from one of my posts a couple weeks back, I completely understand.
Colin went through a book-destroying phase about 6 months ago. He would peel the pictures off of his board books, leaving shreds for me to find after naptime.
One thing we discovered last week when we potty trained Colin is that he LOVES stickers on his sticker chart (we rewarded him for going on the potty). We're going to be using a sticker chart for positive reinforcement on other behaviors now too. Do you think something like that might work?
Also, we realized that Colin was incredibly overtired (which we knew - because he would fight naps and bedtime for an hour+ each time) and once we moved his bedtime back to a firm 7:30, things have been drastically better. We weren't very strict with his bedtime for quite a few months since he wouldn't melt down being awake while we were out and about (bedtime was usually anywhere between 7:30 and 9:00), and the day following the strict 7:30 bedtime, he was a whole new kid. We are SO strict with bedtime at 7:30 and nap at 12:30 now - far more strict than we've ever been, but it has helped tremendously.
I just have to keep reminding myself that there is a reason they call them the "terrible twos" and that while some of the behavior is not acceptable, it's certainly not uncommon.
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Kelly- Thank you, I know we commiserated with eachother on a similar issue recently! I feel like I'm the only one who deals with this though, all my friends kids appear to be perfect! Which obviously I know isn't true, but I feel so isolated and when he's being a pain in MY butt, I dont want to expose other people to him - so I stay home and try to deal with it myself.
I do think a big part of his behavior problem is being over tired. He was always a 10am napper. Once he started fighting them (just after 2nd bday), we pushed it back to noon. Once we moved from the crib it's impossible. I've tried 10am, noon, 2pm...pretty much any time I've tried it doesn't work! The second we're in the car, he's passed out, like before we even get to the end of our street!
I think I've decided to try and get some special activities for him to do in his room during quiet time - hopefully things he can't rip/ruin/break - and get him into a routine of being in his room. I really don't care if he doesn't sleep, but I need him to have down time!
He's always in bed by 730, most days around 7. It's always been that way, and really he goes to bed fine at night - but naps are a different story! I'm hoping it passes soon, and I know I need to work on how I react to him.
Have you read Dr. Sears' advice on napping for toddlers? I think it's pretty good. He talks about having a strategically timed walks or drives at nap time to get them to sleep. I started having trouble getting my DS to hold still long enough to fall asleep a little after 2 so we've been going for a drive everyday for nap time. (For the past 10 months!) He even knows that's what we're doing and is totally fine with it.
I either plan to be driving home at nap time from an errand, or we just pack up into the car and drive until he falls asleep, which is pretty quick.
It sounds like to me that he's probably just tired and then feels grumpy inside and rips stuff because he just feels out of sorts. Good luck!
ETA: I know it's kind of a lot of work to do that - I have to pack up my baby up too to drive, but I think getting that nap during the day is worth it and it makes all the difference!
It's perfectly normal.
It's also perfectly normal for this behavior to continue to age 5, 8, 10, 13 or later if it is not stopped NOW.
Quit making excuses for him. He's bad. That's fine. Toddlers are often bad. It's their nature. It is your JOB to teach them how to be civilized. They don't just end up being civilized because they have enough birthdays.
Time outs are great. Set up a sad corner away from you. General bad behavior gets a count of three, then his diapered butt is in the corner until he can come out and be civilized.
Your move with the books is excellent, but you should have told him that is why you're taking them out, and every time he goes to get a book, you need to emphasize to him that he can only have one at a time and can only look at them when you are there because hurts them, and that is bad.
Toddlers will often do all sorts of horrible things. They won't CONTINUE to do them unless you let them.
My daughter tried to rip books briefly. It took 6 months to squash it completely, but it's entirely gone now.
My son didn't damage things on purpose but, at age 5, was very careless of his toys. As a result, he had a birthday and Christmas entirely sans toys because I thought he had too many to value--and told him so. He got books, craft kits, science experiments, and other things instead. The rule became that any broken/damaged toy must be immediately thrown away, and out of the money he earns, he had to pay me its worth back. Again, it took 6 months, but then he began really caring for his things--not leaving them outside, stepping on them, etc., anymore but taking are of them as he should.
Your friends probably lie about their kids, to be cynical. All toddlers misbehave. Parents these days are trained to think they they've already messed up if their kids is being bad. Nope. They're being a child. But it makes parents hide the bad behavior as their own shame.
BTW, I have very, very "difficult" children in terms of constitution and stubbornness, but they are beautifully behaved 99.5% of the time. It's not because they never want to be bad, though.
TTC since 6/02 (age 22) K/U instantly despite no AF for 5 months--preemie baby boy 1/03
M/C 11/04 - M/C 05 - M/C 06 - BFP 2/08--fullterm baby girl 10/08 - M/C 4/11 - went to RE at age 31
DX: crappy quality & infrequent ovulation, mild MFI
Stimmed cycle #1 C/P 7/11 - Stimmed cycle #2 C/P 8/11 - Stimmed cycle #4 C/P 10/11
On Stimmed Cycle #5
Always thought I'd be a "mom of many"--now just hoping to be a "mom of one or two more!"