Terrible twos!!

I knew they were coming but omg its bad 😬 I feel like I can't even look at her without her having a meltdown at times. And then I get days when she's so good and sweet and makes up for it. Doesn't help that I'm almost 34 weeks pregnant and she kicks me in the stomach though 🥲

My daughter turned two early Jan and hit her ‘terrible twos’ in December… the complete change in her behaviour was like she was a whole different person! After nearly two months, she seems to have settled a bit now and regulates herself a lot better, so hopefully it doesn’t get worse again 🤞🏻 My daughter has a Sensory Basket upstairs and downstairs and a Sensory Bag we travel with. In this she has an emotions mirror, pop it toys, stretchy tubes, a squeezy ball, texture pads, and emotions cards. When I see her starting to get stressed, before she reaches the outburst moment, we speak about deep breaths and then she will sit down with her sensory basket which 99% of the time completely calms and distracts her! I follow gentle and Montessori parenting methods and have always been very open about emotions and regulating methods with my daughter, so not sure if this has helped her learn to regulate herself quicker than some. Not sure if you know about them but some of the…

…Regulating/calming methods you could try are ‘blow out the candles’, deep breaths, counting and breathing, body compressions ending in a compression hug. We also read a lot of the Campbell emotions books such as ‘I can be Patient’, ‘Sometimes I am Angry’, and ‘No More Tantrums’ which my daughter absolutely loves, as well as ‘The Colour Monster’ book. We also have a zones of regulation poster where she can point out what emotions she is feeling. Hopefully some of this helps!

Also I’m not sure if you already do this but sometimes it’s just better to leave them to get their big feelings out and calm themselves. My daughter used to just want to hug me when upset but now usually prefers to independently regulate herself with her sensory basket or an outburst and then will find me when she’s calm, hug me and we’ll talk about what happened :)

I feel you!! This age is harrrrrrdddd

I really hated the phrase ‘terrible twos’ but I get it. The tantrums have defo increased and much more stubborn/demanding. I do find that if she’s having a bit of a tantrum she tends to lay on the floor and now I don’t try and pick her up and I just let her do her thing (of course making sure she’s safe etc) and that normally cools her off. Or I really try to be clear in my communication. One thing that’s become harder is putting her in her stroller for example. I really try to be clear that first we go in the stroller/sling then we go out. Quite often it’ll be me just picking her up and almost manhandling her in there but once she’s in she’s fine and calms off. She does better when she’s sort of restricted. Before I would say okay we can walk for a bit then the stroller but I found it was getting harder and that the boundary was getting blurred. I really don’t know if this all makes any sense at all and tbh tomorrow she’ll probably completely change lol. Just tryna wing it ahahah

It is really hard! Sometimes best to just let them get it out, wait for it to pass and just move on. We’ve started giving two choices with the same outcome “do you want to walk to the living room or shall I carry you” or “do you want the pink top or the blue top” to give her the feeling of choice but still getting xyz done. Sometimes distracting them when they’re getting near a tantrum works “shall we get the playdoh out?” Before she gets to full meltdown. Also getting outside or let them play with water helps massively! I also try and follow a ‘you can’t do that’ with a ‘but you can …’. E.G you can’t throw your toys but you can throw this ball into this basket, or you can’t colour on the walls but you can colour in this book. Fingers crossed they grow out of it soon!

Thank you all so much for your replies. It's like a switch has gone off and your baby is a mini devil 😈 lol such an amazing age as they are learning and adorable with affection but on the other hand, the tantrums and meltdowns are just so hard! I try to keep cool but don't all the time 😫

@Chloe i have tried choices and she will just say no all time 🤦‍♀️

@Rasma ha yes. The choices thing worked with our first but one of our Jan 2023 twins has absolutely no interest in choices when in full tantrum mode. His twin brother is incredibly chilled. Children are so different!