Anger and frustration

What’s the best way to redirect my 18 month olds tantrums? She’s constantly hitting, biting and throwing things at me. I’ve tried telling her off but she literally laughs at me, I’ve tried redirecting it eg giving her a teether when she wants to bite which only works half the time the other half she just throws it across the room or at me, I’ve tried calmly talking to her and telling her it’s not nice to do those things I’ve also tried sitting her in “time out” for a few minutes (usually 2 maximum 3 or 4) where she cries and I ignore until she’s ready to give me a hug to say sorry. I’m due our second baby in January and I’m absolutely petrified that she’ll start taking her frustrations out on him, obviously I’ll be watching them both but I feel that if I’m constantly protecting him and holding him she’s gonna feel like she’s second best.. I know it’s a developmental phase and she’ll be hitting terrible 2s soon but does anyone have any advice on how I try and curb it before he’s here??

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This is going to sound odd, but when mine goes to hit me I ask if she wants a cuddle and give her and offer her one. I’ve found it’s her way of asking for attention and a response. No child is malicious, so I figure there’s no need to punish her. I read somewhere at this age negative or positive attention is attention in their eyes and they don’t massively register the difference. I too am having my second in December, so am also worried about her hitting the baby. I’m keeping a snuzpod downstairs so I can zip up the side!

@Amy next time she goes to hit I’ll try this instead, feel like at this point me telling her off is wasted breath cause she doesn’t listen 🤣 thanks for the advice x

a doula told me terrible 2s is in the second year technically so after 12 months 😭 we don’t do time out but when my toddler first started throwing and biting and this kind of stuff before he turned 1, we tried to do a lot of redirecting while also naming the feelings and talking through it. it didn’t feel like it was working for months and then one day as we were saying i know you’re angry but you can’t hit, he started saying i know i know i know as he was crying and he started hitting and then said no hit and stopped himself. we still have some rough days with the crying but the behaviors are mostly stopped pretty quickly and he’ll be talking himself through it “no hit” or “no bite” or “no mouth” when he wants to do it. that doesn’t mean the behaviors are cut completely but i feel like we’ve made a lot of progress

my second is due next month and i’ve read a lot of stuff that said give your toddler/older kids as much attention as possible and let them overhear you saying good things about them to other adults and the baby, and not to say stuff like “i can’t play with you right now bc of the baby” or stuff like that where you blame the baby or they think you’re taking the baby’s side over theirs so they don’t get resentful or feel like they’re second to the baby. you can even say stuff out loud to the baby like “hold on baby, i’m with toddler but i’ll be right there with you” (assuming baby is safe and all, but for maybe something like a diaper change or whatever) so the toddler also feels special

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