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Have you tried making your DH the sole disciplinarian when he's around?

I actually think toddlers understand a lot more than we give them credit for, and this kind of behavior is about being defiant and pushing your buttons because she senses that it causes strife.

When a toddler ramps up bad behavior to such a high degree (spitting, hitting, etc.) it's easy to sort of normalize other bad behavior that leads up to it, and only try to discipline when it's really bad. I mean, you don't want to be a "mean mommy" who punishes her kid all the time, right? And other bad behavior seems insignificant compared to her tantrums. But I think that actually makes it worse. You're trying to do damage control when she's ramped up to a 7 or 8 or 9. Disciplining her at the first sign of trouble nips it in the bud.

I think it might help if you ask yourself honestly while observing her very closely, when do you first start to see signs of defiance in a given situation? It all starts with attitude and escalates from there. Don't wait for her to actually do something wrong to correct her, because by the time she takes an action (and disrespectful words count as actions!), you've already missed a key teachable moment that could have prevented it in the first place. I don't mean to make it sound like this is easy...you almost have to re-train yourself (and your DH) to raise the bar and pay close attention to her non-verbal cues.

As soon as you see it, your DH (or you, if DH is absent) needs to treat it just as seriously as if she had tried to hit you or said something mean.

"Your attitude is disrespectful to your Mommy and I. You need to go to Time Out for a few minutes to have some alone time so you can adjust your attitude and be pleasant to be around. We want to play with you, but we can't do that until your heart is loving and kind."

Or however you want to say it. Be warned that at first, this will definitely start a meltdown because she is so unused to this kind of reaction to behavior that previously went unchecked, and she will want to see if you'll actually follow through with this new rule. So ignore the meltdowns, force her to go to Time Out, and leave her there until you can see a visible change in her demeanor. If you let her leave Time Out still angry or rebellious, it defeats the point! The purpose of Time Out is not for her to "do her time" regardless of her mindset. It's to give her a breather until she can collect herself and leave Time Out in a different attitude than when she came in.

It might take a while for this to take full effect. She might ramp up her efforts to lash out in a last ditch effort to buck the new regime that is clamping down on her bad behavior. But hopefully, with some consistency (and getting your DH totally on board with this), she will learn that it is not in her best interest to treat your disrespectfully. Doing so only makes her spend eternity in Time Outs and get reprimands from Dad, neither of which are fun.

So my son had a really strong daddy preference from birth to about 2 years of age, then all of a sudden, he changed and now he won't let my husband do anything if I am also home. When I am out, they can accomplish the bath just fine, but if I happen to be there, I have to do the bath.

I personally tried not to make too big a deal of it and I would much rather take the path of least resistance.

LO 1 has a Daddy preference too. It has gotten better lately and she actually lets me put her to sleep when he is home! Big hugs!

Dd1 (2.5) totally has a daddy preference, and especially when he is at home. He makes it a point to correct her behavior when she's rude to me and to generally speak highly of me and how she should treat me throughout their normal conversations. It really has helped!

@Skadi: love this advice!

I have no advice but I sympathize even though my son is only 15 months old. I feel like we're headed this way eventually he has always been a daddy's boy.. Even when he's sick or hurt, he chooses DH over me. When it's just him and I or when we're other people, he is my best friend, but when DH is around I basically don't exist. It really hurts sometimes. Sorry you're going through this

I can't say that I'm in the same boat, for me it's been opposite, but I do want to say that I think parental "preference" is completely normal and in no way a result of anything you've done wrong. I think that the idea that kids are always more attached to their mother is not completely instinctual, but also comes from years and years of moms and dads being in more defined roles, and that's not so much the case now because many dads are much more hands on.

We mostly tolerate the insistence that only I can kiss booboos, etc., but not any hurtful comments or rude tone. We don't really punish it though, either, because I think it might just make her view her dad more negatively if he's also the perceived source of tension between me and her. Instead, I have a very calm talk about how feelings get hurt and how to avoid that. When he's not around, I talk about him and the nice things he does for us, how much I love our whole family, etc. During those talks, I have heard her say that she loves him and what she likes doing with him. The feelings ARE there. It is getting better.