Almost 2 Year Old Driving Me Nuts!

Oh M., I hear ya! My daughter will be three in November and we are still there. About two weeks from her turning two she became the empitome of the "Terrible Twos." I have always believed that the 3's were worse than the 2's. I still believe that, but hope that I am wrong since 3 is fast appoaching. I will tell you what I have learned with my daughter. She needs me to be there for her and play with her on HER terms. She doesn't need this all the time, but she does need "Mommy Time" everyday. If one day, I have too much to do and I do not have time to sit and play with her one-on-one for 30 minutes or so, I will have her come and help me. If I have to work at my desk, I bring her desk over to mine and give her colors, pens, markers, paper, coloring books, spiral notebook, etc. If I am working on a project, I may print two copies of a few pages and have her edit them for me by circling the "wrong words." I do try to make sure that I have some time everyday that I can devote to her and her alone. Fortunately I also have a son for her to play with. However, he is 10 years old and the big age gap sometimes becomes a problem.

Also, I do advice picking your battles with her. If parents "saw" every little thing their child did wrong, they would never cease to correct, punish, etc. You have to ignore some of the small stuff. That is not to say to ignore behaviors that are potentially hazardous, though. Another thing you can do is make some little adjustments for her and you that will make something she does not such a bad thing. For instance, when I am cooking dinner, my daughter likes to be in the big middle of it (she loves helping to do anything - bring in groceries, take out trash, cook, etc. She even likes to help me get dressed or undressed before and after my shower.). What I have done is move all the sharp knives up into the upper cabinets and all glassware up as well. This way, if I need a spoon, she can get it for me and I don't have to worry about the knives. She can get me a plastic mixing bowl from a lower cabinet or even the sugar or flour or Minute Rice, etc. That way she is helping and she feels like a big girl.

I homeschool my son, so during that time, I really need her to be occupied. She has three favorite shows on PBS. I have adjusted our school schedule so that when my son and I need to work together on a subject or project, she is watching on of the two episodes of "Super Why!," "Barney," ir "Caillou." That gives us two hours of time (although broken up) to work together with minimal interruptions. During the rest of our school work, she can come to the table with us and do her own school work. I have wooden letters for her to play with, coloring alphabet and number pages, counters, puzzles, etc. I don't stress the actual "learning of any of this right now, but she is learning. I also let her use blunt scissors and glue at the table with us.

Now, about the store. Now that my daughter is nearly three, I do let her push the buggy more often. However, that is a fairly recent development. I have left the store on more than one occasion because she was being unruly and unreasonable. Sometimes we have just gone out to the car for a bit and sometimes we have gone home. After doing this a handful or so of times, she got the picture. Now, most of the time - not all though, when she is acting up or runnig around and throws a fit because I make her get in the buggy, i aks her if she is ready to go to the car/leave. Usually, she will calm herself down.

About a Mother's Day Out program. I would definitely go for it. It does not have to be often, but I think you and she will both benefit from it. My daughter loves her friends at church. She used to tell me she wanted to stay with me and cried and carried on about going into the nursery. Now, she will tell me that she wants to stay in the nursery (there are more kids in the nursery now). Also, kids just generally behave better away from mom. I don't understand it and sometimes it really infuriates me because I have been beating my head against the wall with her all week and she is a perfect angel for the ladies in the nursery. Ugh! We have a Pre-school and Kindergarten program at church that I will be enrolling my daughter in soon. It will give her plenty of time with her friends from church, more actually learning time, and we both get a break from each other. The great thing about it is that while she is in class, I can have more time to volunteer at the church and my son and I will have more one-on-one time together with school.

One thing to keep in mind is that right now she is learning so much. She is learning about educational things like counting and the alphabet and nursery rhymes, etc. She is also learning about herself and how much control she has. She is learning that she can dress herself, put on her own shoes, pour her own cereal/milk/juice, turn on the TV without your help (even if she hasn't actually attempted to do this yet, she is still figuring it all out and getting ready to tell you "No! I DO IT!"). It is very frustrating when she is sure that she can do something and it jsut doesn't work out like she thought it would. When my son was three he wanted to make his own Pb&J sandwich. I let him. Sure, I had a mess to clean up, but he did it and he felt great about it.

One thing that is hard to do sometimes is to not stifle our children's individuality and curiosity. When we do that, we only frustrate and anger them. Then, we have the fight on our hands. They need to be able to explore everything (within reason). What they can do on their own. Can I really put my shirt on all by myself? Can I really make music with these spoons and bowls? Can I really climb up there and slide down that slide all by myself? Sometimes, in an effort to protect our kids from accidents, we get in the way of their development and growth. My daughter taught me this in a big way. It was fortunate that my back was out of whack and I couldn't help her do things or get to her quick enough to prevent her from doing some things a while back ago. Because of that I realized that she is much more capable of doing things that I thought I needed to do for her or help her with.

Yes, it does get better. Yes, it does get worse before it gets better. Just one more reason for you to pick your battles with her. Otherwise you will both be miserable for a long time.

Sorry for such a long post. It's all jsut so recent for me. Boy could I tell you some stories about this one. My son was so easy and then along came this one. WOW! If you have any questions or would like to talk to me more about this or about specific issues, feel free to send me a message.

Blessings,

L.

AAGGHHH! Don't you just feel like screaming? This was my second DD and let me tell you, had she been a first, she would have been an only-she was that difficult. She just turned 5 on Friday and let me tell you it has truly gotten better. I do suggest a MDO program only because you are a single parent and it will give you both some time apart. You know what they say...distance makes the heart grow fonder. LOL Some things that we learned to do with our DD is choose our battles. If she is just whining to whine or get her way after I have made a decision I completely ignore her. I walk away if I can and I say to her, I can't hear you right now because you are not using your words or I tell her that she may come and talk to me when she can talk right. Sometimes she still has her days and I just say to her, Aubrey, I am not going to listen to this today-it has truly helped us both. I am not always frustrated, because I don't let myself anymore, and she knows where I stand. As for the grocery store, tell her what you expect when you get there, before you get out of the car, and then stick to it. If she disobeys, leave the store, sit in the car if you don't want to go home and then go back after the time out. It is a disconvience and you have to sit and sweat with her but she will know that you mean business and you will start to see a difference. It didn't take us long for DD to know that I meant business and we really will leave if she doesn't listen. I would also say things like, I hate having to leave today because now we can't get the _________ that you wanted to get today. I also tell her, I know you don't like sitting in the cart but it is for your safety and leave it at that, if she crawls out leave the store. Don't worry about looks from others-you are trying to do what is best for your DD and teach her how to obey, you are not doing anything wrong. Also, something we learned with Aubrey and I know this isn't easy either but she truly was not getting enough rest. We just started putting her to bed earlier and getting up was on her own schedule and that helped her as well-she was over stimulated due to exhaustion and she didn't know how to tell me. Finally, one last thing, I promise...whenever I would pick her up from MDO two days a week the after school meltdowns were unbelievable and I would dread picking her up, one day in an effort to control my frustrations, I called her over to the couch with me and I just picked her up and held her-it was unbelievable!!! I held her, in our LR, no distractions and when I put her down, about 5 mins. later she was a different child. Girl, I started doing that every day and I truly feel like it helped and she started looking forward to it-I think that our crazy schedule was overwhelming to her but she knew that it would be calm for her holding time every day. Does this make sense? I hope some of this helps and if there is anything else I can help with let me know. Sorry this is soooo long but I feel your pain.

Both my sons were quite difficult and needed lots of holding and comforting from me (see the posting on using baby carriers last week). It turns out that they both had celiac disease (gluten intolerance) and had dairy allergies. So, I would recommend testing for those. You can test on your own using enterolab: www.enterolab.com
You might think your pediatrician would have considered this, but most are clueless about the relation between food and behaviors (they get one class in nutrition in med school) and if they graduated before the mid 2000s they were taught that celiac is rare. It's not, it's the most highly underdiagnosed genetic disorder, which is why I recommend just testing on your own - you'll save alot of money, doctor visits and frustration (and pain) for your child in the end.

In short, if your daughter is externally that unhappy all the time, she's likely internally equally as unhappy. So, I would not stop looking for something physical to be causing these problems and I would not accept "difficult" as her personality (she may well be very determined and energetic, but if that were the case, she should still be happy/smiling far more often than you're stating). I also don't think MDO would help at all - indeed it might just add to your problems, as they clearly won't be able to give her the one-one time that you can.

Have you tried letting her walk on her own in the grocery store. I started doing this with my daughter when she was 23 months old. Mainly because my son was able to sit up and needed to be in the basket. I was scared at frist thinking I would be running around trying to catch her. Which I had to a few times, but after that she has been fine. She is a pretty strong willed child, but she loves getting to do big girl things. I just explained to her that if she ran off from mommy she would have to sit in the basket. She hated the idea so she got really better fast. As far as naps and bedtime I think we all have these problems. I read to them before their naps and before bedtime. I also tell my daughter a bedtime story, but if she fights going to bed then no bedtime story. You would be amazed at how well it works. She just now started getting scared of the dark so I purchased a night light you might want to try one. You just have to figure out what will work with her remember they know when you are at your wits end and they feed off that so try to remain as calm as possible. I know this is difficult, but if she realizes she is not getting you upset then she might back off a little with her behavior.

Hi M.~

You have gotten some great advice from the others . I would agree that a MDO would be really helpful in a lot of ways. I would also recommend joining a gym w/daycare if it is in the budget . On the days when she is particularly difficult you can go to the gym, workout a little stress and heck, it is really healthy. Meanwhile, she may really like playing there too.

It is so hard to be a mom,not to mention a single mom. I admire you. Hang in there-you are doing a very important job. If it makes you feel any better, my difficult one outgrew the terrible 2's by 3. You are getting there!

N.

My youngest son is a "difficult child" if you want to call it that. You really need to stick to your guns so what if she crys because she has to sit in the front of the buggy make her do it anyways and eventually she'll learn she's not going to get her way just because she crys. If she's demanding and acting out put her in time out every single time and make her sit there every time she gets up her time starts over. She'll eventually learn that you're the boss not her if you show her that you're not going to put up with her behavior and just give in. I'm not saying it's going to be easy because it's not for sure but she'll only get more difficult the older she gets if you don't get a handle on it now. I had to learn this the hard way and just now got my son to behave most of the time but it's still an act in progress. He's now four and it just got worse as he got older I wish I would've started getting a handle on it when he was two. Good luck hoped this helped a little at least.

Hi M., you have gotten some great advice already. My little girl had her moments as well. She however does very well at MDO and that time gives me some alone time to do grocery shopping, housework. You might want to think about placing her in a MDO so you can get a break once in a while. Good luck to you.

Ugh! This sounds like my story two years ago. My daughter will be 4 in November and she was the same as yours. I can tell you it does get better, but it gets worse before then. I was lucky enough to be able to go back to work when she was 9 months old and I truly believe that is how I kept my sanity!! Although weekends usuaully made up for it. My 20 month old son does the same thing in a store. I put him in the back when I can (I know not the safest) but I also try to bring things to distract him, snacks work the best. Avoid the stores near nap and lunch time. A MDO program may help alleviate some stress on you while your daughter also gets some times away to socialize with other kids her age. I can tell you my daughter was always an angel at daycare!!
Hang in there!!!!