Difficult toddler 🆘

It is normal to some extent… you have to understand what is the feeling behind it and why… Example mine when she is overexcited may hit, or throw things when she is frustrated… the piece for me has been understanding the why. She was doing that with the dog food every once in a while and when I would grab her and say no she would throw everything on the floor (poor dog)… I understood (after a few tries) that sometimes she was hungry (she tried to eat once) and since I put her sometimes on her play area (gated) so I can feed the dog she was jealous. So I put the dog food and sit to play with her and normally is put after she is feed. Regarding the clothes sometimes it was because I was distracting her from what she was doing and so on. I would advise to not label him as difficult/naughty because they become that, is kind of you will then always expect that behaviour. Put it as just small balls of energy that are always having amazing days without any type of concerns

My boy is exactly the same, pinching, scratching, biting, throwing things, etc when frustrated or excited. It's so difficult to manage, especially now we have a newborn around, he has already grabbed her face twice and scratched her in excitement. I don't want to tell him 'no you can't hold her' f, but it's hard when you're on edge waiting for him to do something to hurt her. His idea of play at the moment is to empty every container onto the floor 🤦‍♀️

Have you read any books on toddler behaviour? That might help you to understand his behaviour better and whether his behaviour is out of the ordinary or whether it might improve if you make some tweaks to how you respond

@Sophie I have not read any books but think I could use the help. Is there any you could recommend?

On my case what I did with the clothes for example… I put the pants on the position correct and tell her to do it and applause and all that… and the shirts is kind of put over her head (she will scream) and then we start with where are your fingers and play… Still have not mastered a lot of the moments of throwing things but at least a few are not always that bad

I read one called ToddlerCalm which was a nice quick read 😊

@Sophie I looked up this one but a few things came up. Do you know the author?x

Sarah Ockwell-Smith

Here to say you're not alone! It's really hard to keep calm when the behaviors are so continuous. Things that have worked for us is providing options for things that I know are always a fight. My son loves feeding our cat so I use it as a reward. First we brush teeth, then you feed the cat. It's still slightly a fight in the process of actually brushing (typical toddler) but the meltdown have stopped. I'll talk about the "reward" while we brush to keep him focused on the goal. "Do you think she needs a little scoop or big scoop of food? Maybe she needs water too. Could you give her some water when we are done brushing?". Bath time is always a countdown - visual timers are great too. Okay in 5 minutes we have to get out. In 2 mins, in 1 min, now it's time. Some kids just need to be reminded the transition is coming up.