Wednesday
Sep212011
Trials and Tribulations of Toddlers
Wednesday, September 21, 2011 
In my reader survey, I found out how many of you have toddlers and I got tired just thinking about it.As cute as they are, I know it can be a challenging time -- sleep issues, temper tantrums, zero impulse control. They certainly keep parents on their toes and probably make them question their sanity on a regular basis.
I want to do something for all of the parents of toddlers out there reading my blog. I have a project in mind, but I need your help. Tell me about the biggest challenges you are facing right now. What do you find frustrating, tiring, and downright difficult?
Share your stories!
Reader Comments (123)
I love this advice about how to night wean a toddler: http://drjaygordon.com/attachment/sleeppattern.html. We pretty much followed this and it worked for us.
Hello. I don't think I've commented before but I'm a regular reader and I'd love to hear any advice on our current (common, I'm sure!) problem... My boy, Tom, is 2.5 and I'm expecting another in 7 weeks (eeeeek!). The problem is that Tom is increasingly Mummy-fixated. There are certain things I have to do (e.g. dry him after a bath) or he has a complete meltdown. I'm generally sympathetic but it's upsetting for Daddy and I'm worried about how things will go once I can't drop the baby to sort Tom out. I'm not sure how much it helps having other people tell Tom that Mummy can't do X, Y, Z because of the baby - we've been trying to avoid putting that message across but other people see how reasonable Tom is with other things and assume he's old enough to understand this too - I'm just not sure he is.
It's my second child who is the toddler in our house, and the biggest struggle with her has been her language delay. She tries her best to keep up with her big sister in everything, but words fail her, and then her frustration overcomes everything!
We did this as well and it worked wonderfully.
Hi Jemma,
Lots of hugs your way. My boys are 16 months apart. My eldest is high needs, and this was very challenging and worrisome towards the end of my second pregnancy. What helped me was understanding that on some level, even though he was very small, he understood that an enormous change was coming, and he was reacting to that. This helped me when I felt impatient with his neediness. I also tried to encourage him whenever I could to try things by himself, or with daddy's help, but I did do those things for him that he absolutely insisted on. My pediatrician echoed something I had read in a Dr. Karp book when she told me that my toddler was the one who was going to experience the greatest transition and a big loss in addition to a wonderful gift with the birth of the younger sibling, so to give him as much attention as I could, even after baby was born. Baby wearing my second (I had also worn my first) was a life saver - it allowed me to do so much with and for my toddler while still meeting my newborn's needs. And sometimes, my toddler had to cry and have a meltdown while I attended to his younger brother. What helped me with those times was to try and involve him as much as I could - help bring me a diaper for the baby, give him a diaper to put on his teddy while I changed the baby, etc. Read him books and played with him while nursing his brother, and I also tandem nursed. Just some thoughts - hang in there, and it will get better!
I'm in a similar situation as your friend. Our 2.5 year old son is extremely demanding and most of the time it has to be me that will attend to him; he won't accept anyone else. For the first three months I was a virtual recluse. It was all about the baby who had to be nursed and held all the time.
As a toddler, the combination of self-centeredness, plus a limited vocabulary, compounded by an inability to be reasoned with (we're working on it) makes for a challenging time. I like to think of his attempts at manipulation as practice with cause-and-effect relationships (if I do this...mommy will do that...) Sometimes I let him get his way, other times I don't. It depends on a lot of different factors, one of which is his frustration level (if it's early in the day or he's not too tired I go for it).
He doesn't scream as much or wail as long and will sometimes let his dad help while I do something else so I think our attempts at setting boundaries is working. Hubby and I also get a good laugh at some of the attention-seeking behavior (pretend falls and hurts). It's a work in progress and some days are better than others. What helped for me was knowing that if I failed today, I have tomorrow to try again.
YES! The nipple tweak is NUTS. My 16-month-old is flat out obsessed with the other nipple (despite the fact that he's refused to nurse on that side for months and it's actually dried up). He gets upset if he can't tweak or (this is the worst) push it in until it's inverted, then wiggle his finger around in the divot he's created. I can block him, but not without constant effort while he nurses.
We're doing something similar right now. Last night is the first time I had some hope that we're close to the end of the constant night nursing! He was up only twice, both times for about 15 minutes. I'm really hopeful.
For us, I think the hardest part is determining the difference between what our 16-month-old REALLY needs and what he just wants, and when it's okay to deny him a want. We're trying to night wean right now; he upped his demand from 1-3 times/per night to 5-7 times/night at around a year, and I was just getting run down, so we felt like this was appropriate. But closing Mom's All-Night Diner has been heartbreaking for me. We rocked and cried together for about two hours a few nights ago. And then last night, he was up only twice, and I got him back down in about 15 minutes both times! This kind of situation (denying him things for good reasons, but having to watch him seem devastated by it initially) is where I struggle. While I don't want him to believe he can have anything he wants if he pitches a big enough fit, I also don't believe in saying "no" just because it's convenient for me or others, and I want to honor his choices when I can do so without ignoring my needs. So for me, the challenge is transitioning my mindset to working with a little person who can reason and defer gratification, and how to know when to put my foot down versus when I can let him "win."
I feel lucky my 2 1/2 year old is not a whiner, doesn't throw tantrums, and is a pretty enjoyable presence. However, he is delighted and fascinated by the effects of upsetting me, and unfortunately the two times I can't remain calm are when he throws hard objects at close range right at my face when he is angry, or runs off down the sidewalk on the rare chance he is not holding my hand. He finds me being upset hilarious/fascinating. He had learned too well these are great experiments to see whats gonna happen... and I am not a punisher, a time-outer, or a yeller, but I do get emotionally quite charged and seems to love it. Maybe these rea the two times he sees me angry/ scared. I can talk and explain and take away dangerous toys only so much, but he doesn't really understand the consequences of hurting me no matter what I do, and calmly tells me he understands why running off is dangerous only to turn around the next day in a fit if excitement when he wants to see me upset.
Okay, I posted our concerns in general earlier, but now am back to vent, because this week (and the one before) is just really rough. We're really struggling with our "Angel" triplet and how to keep her safe. I think she just really needs to learn the word no in reference to what's okay and what's not.
She climbs everywhere & figures out how to get on top of things before we've realized how to make anything safer. Her response to "no" or redirection is laughter & to do it again. Yes, I'm sorry to admit it, but we've resorted to a swat on her backside at the 25th (I'm not exaggerating) or more redirection from something that could hurt her worse than the swat. The reaction is still laughter and more of the same behavior. If you raise your voice, she smiles and does the behavior again. Her escapade today ended up leaving a triplet sister sitting in the midst of broken glass while Daddy was out of room grabbing clothes to change them into... He can't watch all 3 every single moment. (That resulted in a "time-out" of sorts in her crib - which has a crib tent she can't get out of - Daddy was ready to keep her there all day, I think. After calming down & cleaning up broken glass mess, maybe it's now just 20 minutes).
She's figured out how to defy many childproofing techniques. We have cats. We keep the door to their kitty litter/area closed and have a kitty door for them. She has figured out how to squeeze her little body through the kitty door and go in all areas that aren't childproofed. We locked the kitty door - she broke the door off the hinges.
She puts EVERYTHING in her mouth, and as much as we work with her to keep that from happening, she smiles and pops a bunch of clover or grass (dirt, pens, any "found" item at all) in her mouth, and runs away as you attempt to get to her. And she's super fast. If you try to take something away from her, it all becomes a chase game.
I think it may be an attention need - so you try to give her more attention. That really helps while she's getting the attention, but at some point, you simply can't. You have to care for 2 other toddlers at the same time, you have to make them food... Putting her in a "timeout" doesn't work because she simply waits you out and then goes right back to the activity. If she wants to, she can sit and look at a book, or play with a particular toy for a really long time, she's incredibly intense, however, I've not yet figured out how to get her to stop doing what she wants to do. HELP!
Forgot to say - she'll be 3 in Nov., running somewhat behind on milestones, does not talk much at all, but will surprise us with a word here and there. When she does move forward on her milestones, she's usually perfect - she crawled perfectly, rolled perfectly... she observes a lot, then suddenly one day decides to do something you've never seen her attempt before - and it's perfect. She has no fear of anything. My husband's brother at 3 or 4 was found on the roof of the garage of their home - because he was curious. I'm afraid that's the type of kid I'm supposed to raise with this Angel/monkey girl,.
Biggest challenges parenting my 15 month old: Time management (wrangling toddlers is exhausting and therefore my house is a pig stye), expectation management (figuring out that eating at restaurants is not that easy anymore), deciding what's worth disciplining and what's worth ignoring, struggling with deciding how to discipline a 15 month old and what is and isn't effective, or even if discipline is the right word here. I know my son is pretty awesome and he's very smart (too smart sometimes), but he's still so young, and I don't know when to treat him like a baby and when to expect him to be bigger.
Hi,
As I scrolled down the huge list of responses I noticed so many familiar things about what my toddler does as well. But I think the my 2 (soon to be 3yr old) is acts age appropriate (tantrums, not using his words, wanting to wake up baby sister, not listening). The biggest challenge has been to understand a toddlers mind and how their brain works--how much it has developed and acting accordingly. NOT reacting.
I think positive discipline works really well. I did that from the start and have minimal issue. But when I do, I feel the way my toddler acts (crying, whining..etc) is not the problem. its a symptom of the real problem (which may be that he is hungry or tired or needs affection..etc.) SO my issue is not my toddler, its my reaction-- making sure I handle it the right way not reacting all the time (which may make things worse). SO right now I find it hard to always be consistent in how I react because its not what Im used to.
(I went to a seminar called " Non Violent Parenting" and it was amazing. Took parenting tips to a whole different level. But those tips worked so well once I put it into practice! I was amazed. It is the work of Dr. Dan Siegel who just wrote a book called The Whole-Brain Child. It offers "Strategies to Nurture Your Child’s Developing Mind, Survive Everyday Parenting Struggles, and Help Your Family Thrive")
These are definitely issues for us as well as potty training resistance since the new baby. Also the huge changes that happen after a new baby. The most traumatic part about having the 2nd was how it effected my toddler. Totally put him out of sorts. It's been 3 months now and I finally feel he's getting back to himself.
Hi. new to your blog.
Right now my biggest challenge is toilet training my daughter. I know I started young (at 12 months, she is now 15 months), but I really hate(d) her being with nappies. And she does know what the potty is for, except.... So she sometimes pees in the potty and gets all the praise etc, other times just goes on the floor, whatever - quite frustrating!
In this post, I said I was working on a little project for the parents of toddlers. I just put some finishing touches on it tonight and should be launching it this weekend. Just thought I'd build a bit of anticipation for those of you still subscribed to this comment thread. :)
Hooray! Just had a massive meltdown at a neighbor's house last night (first really big one). I'm SOOOO ready for anything to help toddler parents!
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Yes please - advice on how to gently wean the 17 month old boob monster. I keep thinking he'll self-wean when he's ready, but I honestly don't know if I can last that long. All night. All day. He's fine without on his two days a week away from me at day care and with his nanna, but apart from that... At first losing weight was fun, now I feel like an empty bag. I once heard a story of weaning an 18 month old by going to Bali for a week (without him) and was horrified - tell you what, though, that's starting to sound inviting. Help!
Haven't actually completely weaned my 34 month old (!) but am happy to have nursing as a tool to deal with some of the occasional irrational "I'm a toddler" moments, so not worried.
Mothercraft has a great book on weaning though - Nursing Mother's Guide to weaning-photo of front cover here: http://parenthood.phibian.com/?ID=460. I especially liked that it had advice for all ages without being judgmental; just talked about various strategies.
Thanks Mary, I'll see if I can find it.
I swing between feeling really good about still breastfeeding with all its benefits of intimacy and comfort; and then have a bout of sleepless nights while my husband works double-time, and find myself using the breast as a pacifier, which I feel inhibits true intimacy to some degree (I zone out) and seems to encourage more night-waking. Back when dad did some night parenting, soothing to sleep was much quicker.
I rarely breastfeed to comfort a fall or tantrum, and try hard to cultivate a broad repertoire of comfort with him, which he responds well to. It constantly astounds me how much energy and perseverence parenting takes!!
One day he won't want 'boob please mama' anymore, and I'm sure I'll be sad then, so I try to remember to appreciate this beautiful frustrating exhausting illuminating time.