For those of you with LOs ages 2 and up, what made you think "my LO has officially hit the terrible two's and/or horrible three's"?
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My LO just turned one but I think she's already there. Sometimes she throws such big tantrums!
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When you are ashamed of being your child's parent! I get really frustrated when Charlie refuses to listen to me.
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@mrbee: if that's the criterion, I am already there at 20 months, lol.
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@looch: it gets better! Then it gets worse. Then better, then worse. Then better, better, worse, better, worse, worse, I give up already!!
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@mrbee: haha, tell me about it...there are some times when I am all "omg my son is so awesome." Those moments are then followed by "omg, my son just hit a girl on the head with a shovel." It's those moments when I just want to claim he belongs to someone else.
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@looch: I've had a lot of luck with a book I blogged about!! But it doesn't work when he's hungry or tired, which happened a lot when we were traveling! I feel your pain!
pa hope the girl is ok too!!
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@mrbee: do you mean Magic 1-2-3? I feel like I am counting all day long.
@looch: I assume you mean a plastic shovel!
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@Andrea: how to talk so your kids listen, and how to listen so your kids talk. Life changing! There should be a post on it on the blog tab...
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@mrbee: Does this book cover different scenarios like what to do when everything seems to enrage your child? I feel like DD needs some anger management recently.
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I'm obviously not there yet. But do you think all kids go through the terrible twos? Our nieces from my husband's side definitely did but I don't think our niece from my side did.
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@regberadaisy: I've seen a few posters say that their kids were fine at 2 but were terrors at 3. Did your niece go through the horrible 3's?
@mrbee: thanks! I just requested it from the library.
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@Andrea: No, she really didn't. She's an anomaly! haha But my husband's nieces def went through both!
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@regberadaisy: lucky parents!
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I always think of the terrible two's as massive tantrums resulting of a lack of verbal skills, and the horrible three's as willful disobedience and boundary-testing.
DD is kinda in between stages where she's just gotten really dramatic and whiney. She's much, much worse when she's tired, so watching out for her sleep has helped a ton in this area. But yeah. Yesterday I told her to please sit nicely in her chair and she ran off crying for like 10 minutes. It's the oddest thing to see such big reactions for something so small...
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@Andrea: omg yes, but with my son, I wouldn't rule out a metal one. This weekend we were at a transportation museum and they had an outdoor construction zone with metal tools. I was terrified he'd impale someone with his shovel.
I've heard great things about Magic 1-2-3, but I've yet to implement it successfully.
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@Honeybee: DD wakes up after sleeping for 12 hours and is in a foul mood right off the bat so I know it's not sleep. But it's exactly what you said, the smallest little thing can set her off. She is having a lot of trouble controlling her emotions. And she speaks in sentences so I know it's not a verbal issue. We did go through this before she started talking, but we're back to it again, only worse.
@looch: It does work, most of the time Usually between that and the threat of a timeout, I can get her to do one thing but then something else will set her off 10 minutes later so I have to figure out what to do about that.
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@regberadaisy: the girl I nanny never did either. I started with her when she was 2.5 and her parents said she had never been "terrible"
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@mrbee: I'm buying this book!!!
2's went like this: super good, a little loud, then a few bad patches here and there but nothing that a time-out couldn't fix.
3's: just bad! I get so frustrated. He doesn't listen to anyone now and that's scary to me...he runs away when I ask him to stay put, he talks back and worst of all he won't take naps or cuddle with me! He's even said, "I don't like you anymore"
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@Andrea: I know how frustrating it can be. I try to remind her to use her words, tell me what's wrong, ask her simple questions, etc... but sometimes she completely freaks out about something so little. It's really puzzling.
We had a few weeks were it kept getting worse and worse. At the peak, she literally cried all day long. I ended up pushing her bedtime back an hour, and that helped out a ton. She still does 14 hours (between nighttime and nap sleep) some days, so sleep is a big trigger for her. It doesn't solve the issue entirely, but it helps.
Of course, this morning she had a breakdown because I asked her to get out of bed and come downstairs for breakfast... Lol, completely baffling!
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@Honeybee: it sounds like we have twins at the moment. I am also feeling mostly puzzled and baffled! Let me know if you figure it all out.
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@Andrea: Lol done!
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The 2s were bad but manageable b/c he actually listened more. The 3s...he stopped listening and started testing our patience and everything is just a battle now. I feel like I'm constantly disciplining him and it's just so exhausting! Just now, I told him to stop leaning on the round glass table that we have (I know, not the most practical table with kids) and I had to warn him 4x before he sort of listened and stopped leaning on the table. Sort of.
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Ugh. Threes are awful. But I agree with @honeybee the terrible twos are tantrums because they an communicate yet (in all three if our boys I was way earlier than two). My pediatrician told me it usually comes with walking because they want to interact with their environment and have more and can't. Horrible threes are disobedience which leads to tantrums. I think I am gong to get the book that @mrbee mentioned. I generally haven't had a lot of time to read but I NEED HELP. Three little boys in the threes are killing me!
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I have started to see things less in terms of testing limits and not listening, and more in terms of the kids not feeling listened to... it's really transformed things with Charlie, which were getting really out of control.
One challenge has been that Bee and I have been using different techniques though, so we're working to be singing from the same songbook... almost there!
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@mrbee: I agree. It definitely helps if LO knows that he is being heard. I'm discovering that my husband and I have vastly different parenting styles and it really drives me crazy. LO never has any episodes when I'm alone with him. Husband was away for 4 days recently - lo ate well, listened and very little back talk. When my husband is around, there's multiple meltdowns each day and refuses to do anything we ask him to do. I don't know what it is.
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@BoogieBea: Are his meals and sleep consistent whether you're alone with LO or not?
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@mrbee: meal times and sleep are pretty consistent either way. What's different when I'm alone with them is that our time is much more structured. I plan each day down to the minute just so I can have better control since I also have a 1 year old plus a dog to walk twice a day. There's always a mixture of active play, quiet play, doing learning workbooks and half hour of screen time. He gets a lot more screen time from my husband which I think is one culprit to his bad behavior.
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I'm scared of the terrible three's now! I had never heard of the 3s being worse than the 2s until I've been reading about it on HB!
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