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I keep telling my three year old that she might not make it to four. The 3's are HARD!

My mother is always talking about how the year I was three was the worst year of her life and it's her greatest accomplishment that we both came out alive.

She is soooo looking forward to when M is three and I get my payback!

I have a friend who insists that the 3s are the worst! I think because terrible twos just sounds more catchy! lol. Or maybe because it starts in the 2s and by the 3s people get used to the craziness? I really don't know! All I know is the 0-5 period in general sounds hard!

Dare I ask, but what happens in the 3s that is so terrible? Worse than the newborn phase of no sleep/recovering from childbirth/exploding boobs?

@highwire: The terrible threes are like the nonstop, nonsensical tantruming of the terrible twos, combined with direct defiance, constant whining/yelling, and just a generally bad attitude about everything. For me, it's much harder to deal with than simple sleep deprivation.

@highwire: It probably depends on your personality. I don't think for me it gets any worse than sleep deprivation and a constantly (or often) crying baby that can't tell you what they want/need! I've dealt with whining, crying, tantrums, etc and found it much easier, but I've never done it on a 24/7 basis..so I'll definitely have to go back to work by then! Lol

Three's are HARD! I'm counting down the days to 4 (nine!!!!) - luckily it seems like the tantrums are slowly lessening. Instead of about 6 a day, we are down to 1.

@Andrea: An example of the terrible threes: Yesterday I asked DD to put her tea set away while I went downstairs to the bathroom. I was downstairs maybe 1.5 minutes when I heard a huge crash, DS started screaming, and DD came sauntering into the bathroom with a huge smile on her face. In the time I was downstairs, she had trashed the playroom and pulled down the baby gate on top of her brother. I calmed down DS, fixed the baby gate, and then had to physically chase her all over the house to put her in time out and she refused to clean up any of her mess, resulting in me taking all of her toys away. That was like the first 30 minutes of our day, and it continued like that for 12 (!) hours (without any toys to play with, mind you). Yesterday was a bad day.

Haha that's funny. I taught a 3 year old preschool class for a couple years before I switched to 4/5's. Oh my goodness. The 3's were exhausting because of the tantrums and they were still slightly baby-like. My kids now are another story....I want to take a nap every afternoon.

We're entering the terrible 3s right now! He doesn't tantrum like he did when he was 2. But he whines all day long. It drives me crazy! What's up with the whining? Why can't they just talk normally? They're not gonna get their way just because they're whining about it. AUGHHH!!!!

I need to stop reading! I'm struggling with 1!!

@Honeybee: All true. 2 is just a warm up for 3, I think. All of the twos, plus the will, bargaining power, and evasive mechanisms to get around all our techniques.

Ha ha, but I have a secret weapon that's been working and I'll share it on the blog soon!

Yikes. I can say from experience that the newborn phase was for sure not the best part for me. My 19 month old just keeps getting funner and funner.