I have a two year old and a three month old and my life is chaos. My daughter freaks out whenever I need to take care of the baby. She screams and hangs on to me. She gets a death grip around whatever part of my body she can. The baby started to cry and so she knew I was going to get him and her tantrum started. It has been like this for three months now. What can I do? I am about to lose my mind. I feel so bad I can't give them 100% attention all the time but I'm trying my best. My days are miserable with all the screaming and crying. I am trying to teach my son how to fall asleep on his own but that is almost impossible with a toddler always with us. I'm to the point where I want a job so I don't have to deal with this every day. Any tips? Please...
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Hang in there. I know it sounds impossible but one day at a time and once your son is 6 months or so, and is able to sit up and entertain himself for a couple of minutes, it will get better!
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I have noticed with my young 2 year old that he needs a LOT of transition time. So she may just need a little more transition before you go get the baby. This isn't to say let the baby cry for 10 minutes. But a moment or 2 probably won't hurt. For my son it is as easy as "I will turn on Team Umizoomi while I go shower, you stay right here" and he will. Or "After this x you need to go potty". Or "You can't have x until you go potty".
The other thing we do is if he wants to have a fit that is fine but he can't be around us (we don't want to hear it). So we put him in his room (light on, door open) and tell him when he is done he can come back and join us.
I am sure things will get better!
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I agree with @sloaneandpuffy: ; it will get much better very soon!
Can you give your daughter something to do during nursing/diaper changes/etc...? I used to strap my daughter into the highchair and feed her a snack or a meal during some of my son's feeding, and that kept her distracted and out of my hair during those times. She also liked being my "big helper" with her little brother, and I still praise her for every little thing she does to help. one thing I did during naptimes swas shut DS's door and I put a baby door knob guard (the kind that snap right over a door know and make it difficult to open) on the outside of DS's door. I would give DD an activity and then shut DS's door so she couldn't come in and interrupt while I was putting him to sleep. She cried at first, and then eventually accepted it and started staying in her room while I was putting the baby down.
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awww i can imagine that it must be tough right now!
how about using a timer? i've found that to be effective with charlie. for instance i'll tell him you can play with x toy for 5 minutes and then it's bath time. then the timer tells him to stop playing and not me.
maybe you could use it to tell her -- i'll be back in 5 minutes and set the timer?
you could try a reward chart? or something even simpler like a fish bowl, and you put something in it every time you "catch her being good." tons and tons of positive reinforcement for positive behavior, and little to no attention for negative behavior. it sounds so common sense, but it's actually really difficult unless you actually think about it!
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@sloaneandpuffy: I hear a lot of people say at 6 months it gets better but that seems forever away.
@Mrs. Bee: I like the idea of the rewards chart because she definitely responds to positive reinforcement but she just turned two last week so I think that might be a little above her. And I have learned that she does much better every time to tell her she is a good big sister or I show her appreciation for helping me (that was the only way I got her to quit hitting her brother every time I pick him up. Now she smothers him in kisses) but I don't know how I can do that when she is throwing a for every time I pick him up. I guess I could find something to compliment her on even if she is doing a puzzle or coloring? I just wish this phase would pass. I want to enjoy my children instead of being reduced to cheers.
Luckily my husband sees the chaos and he lets me hire a babysitter to help and she will be here in 41 minutes! I hope I don't kiss her when she walks through the doors.
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@MrsHotDog: i don't think she is too young for it. i've used it effectively for olive when she was younger. i would ignore her when she threw tantrums, and lavish her with praise whenever she would do something good. her tantrums got much, much less intense in terms of intensity and duration.
if a reward chart is too much to grasp, i think trying to remove attention is definitely worth a shot. we tend to give our kids more attention when they're acting out, and we're just reinforcing the negative behavior and causing them to do it more often.
it's not easy.. i know it's always a work in progress! but sounds like you're really struggling and this is not an instant fix, but it is something that's proven to work!
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hugs! I don't have any great advice, but the advice above seems great! I hope things get easier soon.
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@Mrs. Bee: do you have a blog post on the reward chart? I will give anything a try. I think it would be fun to do with her.
I guess I need to figure out another way to feed my son because I can't ignore her like I do when I change his diaper since I am normally on the couch feeding him and she is literally crawling all over me and I can't hold him safely. Thanks for your input!
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@MrsHotDog: i haven't done a post on it because it was extremely ineffective with charlie -- he doesn't care if we throw all his toys away... he's not motivated by rewards. but here are some simple ideas your daughter might understand
http://pinterest.com/pin/54184001736314869/
http://pinterest.com/pin/185069865909212844/ -
This is what I was most afraid of when DS came, but luckily my mom came and stayed for a month. Do you have anyone, even a neighbor or someone, to come help just a few days or even a few hours a day, so that your DD can get one on one attention? Or, try a baby doll, so she can copy what you are doing (uh oh, I think our babies have a stinky diaper, we should go change them)?
I'm bad about this, but make some special time for just you and your daughter. Maybe once a week or every other week take her out, just her and you, and pamper her with your attention. When I take the time to do this with my DD, it helps.
It does get better, soon they can interact and nothing is cooler than watching your younger LO laugh at your older LO
Hang in there, I've been there (and am doing it again with less than a two year gap between LO#2 and LO#3)
Hang in there, I've been there (and am doing it again with less than a two year gap between LO#2 and LO#3)
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