My sweet little girl (13 months) has started with mini tantrums. And by mini, I mean they last seconds but are frequent. She still has a very limited vocabulary which is not a concern of mine but I am not sure what I can do to minimize these fits. It can happen when changing a diaper to not being able to reach a toy in her basket. Both my husband and I have turned to redirection and helping her express her needs by "talking" her through her want. We say thing like: "Do you want your cup?", "I will help you but use your words" (clearly she can't but it's our hope that repetition will help) and simply telling her that her yelling hurts our ears and that we use a "nice" voice. Everything seems to fall short of our hopeful outcome and she will turn her head and scream more or simply not cooperate. Redirection works best. Any suggestions? Encouragement? We do some basic sign language but if she's mad enough, that goes out the window. While we both believe in other forms discipline (time out or taking privileges away) we don't feel that there's much we can do at this point due to her age. My mom(who raised 11 of us) says this is normal. Please tell me she's right!!! Thanks all!
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This is TOTALLY normal for this age! As soon as both my kids hit 12 months, they started tantruming!
Redirect where you can, but otherwise ignore bad behavior as best you can. We also started implementing time outs at this age (one minute per year, so only one minute timeouts at this age). We did timeouts mostly for hitting, biting, kicking, throwing hard objects.
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@Adira: thankfully she hasn't started with signs if aggression such as hitting, biting or throwing things but thank you for the reassurance. It just kind of showed up out of nowhere so I wanted to run this past some other moms. Thanks!
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@nugget16: Yep, it definitely starts out of the blue, but is a normal developmental phase! Both my kids were perfect angels and then turned 1 and suddenly were tantruming over the craziest things! Just know it's normal.
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100% normal. My DD is 22 months old and goes through phases of throwing lots of tantrums and phases where she's pretty mellow. She went through an intense tantrum phase right around 14 months.
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Completely normal. My 13 month old and her same age cousin have started doing this all the time. It's developmentally appropriate at this age. I wouldn't even worry too much about your response at this age, other than maybe doing what you're doing now, which is practice the response (use words, redirect) you want to have when she's older so it becomes second nature to you.
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Definitely normal. My 16 month old does this allll the time.
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Yep, age appropriate and developmentally normal! My tips are to use lots of empathy, don't take the tantrums personally and let them upset you, and try to avoid saying "no" to often. You might also like to check out Janet Lansbury's blog or try reading The Happiest Toddler on the Block.
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Totally normal. It lasted about a month for both of my kids, including bad naps and not wanting to eat. After a month they slowly started coming around. DS2 is almost 15 months and he's just coming back to his senses after a month of being fussy. I love getting my happy little baby again!
That said, tantrums are just a normal part of your life now! DS2 started getting a few more words and is getting better at baby signs and just trying to express himself during this phase but he still gets angry when we don't understand what he wants and gets PISSED. Generally with DS1, if I remember we had developmental periods at around 13 months, 16-18 months, 22 months, and then at 2.5 we started things ticking up again. DS1 is almost 3 and we are steeling ourselves for threenagerdom!
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I know you said you've been using sign, have you taught her the sign for help? That was really useful for us at that age. It took her a while to catch on and not scream first, but once she did it eased a lot of her frustration.
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Thank you all for your reassurance and advice. It really helped me relax a bit
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It sounds like you have a strong willed child. I would read up on some parenting styles techniques for these types of children and just be ready to hold your horses when you get to age 2 and 3. Sorry but these little "tantrums" are NOTHING compared to what may be coming.
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@t.h.o.u. yeah my son is about to turn 2 and strong willed is an understatement. OMG the tantrums and screaming. And they last FOREVER. And if he's the least bit tired or hungry, hold your horses... it is rough.
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@T.H.O.U.: oh goodness! Well, strong willed or not, we will get through this one day at a time!
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I employ the get loud and mimic technique. LO likes to fall back on the floor and throw a fit. He gets a kick out of me getting near his level and acknowledging what he wants, telling him he can't have or do it all while saying it at the same volume and excitement he's displaying. Other times I just verbalize the redirection in hopes he will join me. I try not to move him myself in case he jerks around and bumps his head.
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