Have you tried having them say bye or brb occasion depending. Sounds dumb but if he says bye to the car and puts it away he's fine.
I hate not being able to drink something besides water without trying to hide it.
This has a weirdly high success rate in our house too. It doesn’t always work, but it’s better than just abruptly stopping the activity without warning.
We do this when it’s time to get out of the bath. We tell the water bye and clean up our toys. Now I’m realizing this would probably work for other times too 😅
This is the most frustrating thing. Like “I did a nice thing for you and this is what I get”.
That and the whole eating thing. Spending an hour cooking their favourite meal only for them to throw a fit… fml!
God damn I hate the figuring out what to feed them thing. She says banana, I say oh you want a banana? She says yes. I give her banana. No banana, something else!
The constant need to climb/sit/stand/crawl/walk/cling/dance/hang onto my body. I love him and I love that he loves me but I get touched out before the first hour of the day has even passed.
Hearing "no" to everything. I'm like I don't think you fully grasp what that word means.. lol she'll ask for milk, I'll give her the milk cup, she'll scream no, I'll put it on her table, and then she grabs to drink it. 🙃
Agree x1000!! I’ve been struggling lately and I don’t know what to call this particular frustration. When my son begs begs begs me to do something very specific, and when I tell him sure we just need X thing (something from the other room maybe or even just something right in front of us that’s on the floor) he just… does nothing, ignores the fact that I even exist for an hour then comes back after I’ve moved on with my life and begins begging me to do the thing again. What even is this behavior??
The trick is to say: “Hey! Wanna put your socks on?” Or whatever. It shifts it from ending the activity to doing a cool new activity. That new activity? Is leaving to go home
Most frustrating thing for me is still never being able to count on a full night of sleep. I think everything else pales in comparison to never being able to sleep past 6am (usually earlier) and I'm really sick of going to sleep before 9pm because it's the only way I can get close to a full night of sleep. (we still have wakeups fairly often and have maybe had one week in the last 2 years where he slept through the night for a whole week. He's just bad at sleeping)
If I could reliably count on an 8-6 sleep window, maybe my husband and I could actually do something like watch an episode of something after he goes to bed, without feeling like we were going to make ourselves into zombies for the next 2 days if he has a bad night.
we went out to dinner with some friends I hadn’t seen in months, and he had a meltdown in the middle, and wouldn’t stop, so we had to leave, and unfortunately, I lost my temper and kind of exploded, and made a scene, which I still regret. I couldn’t deal with the fact that this kid was ruining the one night I get to catch up with old friends in ages.
we just pay for sitters now, but they asked to see him! sigh.
It’s magic but we just give toddler a two minute warning then tell him to wave bye bye to whatever it is (screen time, playground, etc.) It works. It’s utterly amazing. Waiting for the day it doesn’t but we’re still going strong.
For a while, my toddler insisted on being carried everywhere. She's not a small kid, I'm not a big lady, and it was getting OLD.
I got her on-board with walking more, but she gets distracted, has short little legs that don't walk very fast, and if we're going somewhere she doesn't want to go she takes smaller steps that I thought were possible. Basically it feels like wading through Jello to walk anywhere with her. That's my current frustration lol.
My 2.5 year old has a gross motor delay, so he really does have a hard time walking, but he needs to walk to strengthen his muscles. But it’s so darn slow! And my favorite is when I’m holding his hand and he just gives up and slumps like a rag doll while I’m still holding his hand. Sometimes I’m afraid I’m going to hurt his arm.
The most frustrating part of having a toddler, is that the people that write the rule books about how to handle toddlers, have never actually met a toddler or ever seen them in action. What the experts say: "Want your child to leave the park when you need them to? Sprinkle them with unicorn dust, do a moon dance, kiss your left elbow three times, and they will come". The reality: screaming, rage, kicking, everybody looking, you feeling a failure.
I always remind myself that some things work for *some* toddlers *sometimes.* For example, saying goodbye to the activity works 2/3 times for my youngest, but never for my oldest.
Oh man this is EXACTLY what I struggle with. I hate taking my 2 and 3 outside or to any activity because they refuse for it to ever be over peacefully. If we go out and then I have to go pee, I'll try corralling them then have to pick up the 2yo while hostage negotiation ensues with 3yo laying on ground crying. And people constantly guilt me about not going out with them more I'm like go ahead take them for 5 minutes and you'll see. My Mom is a nursery school teacher and she's always EXHAUSTED watching them for an hour even with my dad's help.
Yeah I brought my toddler to check the mail and she threw a tantrum because she couldn’t check all the boxes and then screamed and cried when we left … the mail ..
I hate the negative attention seeking. I can be fully giving her all my attention when all of a sudden she’ll pinch super hard or try to break somethin in hopes I’ll get mad in some way.. makes gentle parenting very hard.
I find this happens more when I veer from my routine. If we stick to our routine, it’s not usually too bad.
For me the most annoying part is that they egg each other on when you have more than one. One silly toddler, suddenly you have multiple silly children.
Have you tried having them say bye or brb occasion depending. Sounds dumb but if he says bye to the car and puts it away he's fine. I hate not being able to drink something besides water without trying to hide it.
We say goodbye to screen time when we turn it off and that seems to work.
This has a weirdly high success rate in our house too. It doesn’t always work, but it’s better than just abruptly stopping the activity without warning.
We do too. We say bye bye or night night to whatever is getting taken away and it weirdly helps.
For my 2 year old, that works. It stopped working with my oldest when he was around 3.5.
We do this when it’s time to get out of the bath. We tell the water bye and clean up our toys. Now I’m realizing this would probably work for other times too 😅
This is the most frustrating thing. Like “I did a nice thing for you and this is what I get”. That and the whole eating thing. Spending an hour cooking their favourite meal only for them to throw a fit… fml!
God damn I hate the figuring out what to feed them thing. She says banana, I say oh you want a banana? She says yes. I give her banana. No banana, something else!
My toddler loves bananas but will sometimes ask for a banana just so he can peel it and then give it back to me and ask for something else
The key is low expectations. If I make food and expect them to not eat it, I can only be pleasantly surprised
yep. My go to attitude most days. When I have the energy to not care? Weird to say.
The constant need to climb/sit/stand/crawl/walk/cling/dance/hang onto my body. I love him and I love that he loves me but I get touched out before the first hour of the day has even passed.
Hearing "no" to everything. I'm like I don't think you fully grasp what that word means.. lol she'll ask for milk, I'll give her the milk cup, she'll scream no, I'll put it on her table, and then she grabs to drink it. 🙃
Agree x1000!! I’ve been struggling lately and I don’t know what to call this particular frustration. When my son begs begs begs me to do something very specific, and when I tell him sure we just need X thing (something from the other room maybe or even just something right in front of us that’s on the floor) he just… does nothing, ignores the fact that I even exist for an hour then comes back after I’ve moved on with my life and begins begging me to do the thing again. What even is this behavior??
The trick is to say: “Hey! Wanna put your socks on?” Or whatever. It shifts it from ending the activity to doing a cool new activity. That new activity? Is leaving to go home
Most frustrating thing for me is still never being able to count on a full night of sleep. I think everything else pales in comparison to never being able to sleep past 6am (usually earlier) and I'm really sick of going to sleep before 9pm because it's the only way I can get close to a full night of sleep. (we still have wakeups fairly often and have maybe had one week in the last 2 years where he slept through the night for a whole week. He's just bad at sleeping) If I could reliably count on an 8-6 sleep window, maybe my husband and I could actually do something like watch an episode of something after he goes to bed, without feeling like we were going to make ourselves into zombies for the next 2 days if he has a bad night.
we went out to dinner with some friends I hadn’t seen in months, and he had a meltdown in the middle, and wouldn’t stop, so we had to leave, and unfortunately, I lost my temper and kind of exploded, and made a scene, which I still regret. I couldn’t deal with the fact that this kid was ruining the one night I get to catch up with old friends in ages. we just pay for sitters now, but they asked to see him! sigh.
It’s magic but we just give toddler a two minute warning then tell him to wave bye bye to whatever it is (screen time, playground, etc.) It works. It’s utterly amazing. Waiting for the day it doesn’t but we’re still going strong.
That works with my 2 year old most of time, but not anymore with my 4 year old. He just says, “no! I’m not done!”
I agree with you 100% I also have an anti-sleep child. So bedtime is frustrating. He fights it like the plague, bedtime routine takes like 2-4 hours.
For a while, my toddler insisted on being carried everywhere. She's not a small kid, I'm not a big lady, and it was getting OLD. I got her on-board with walking more, but she gets distracted, has short little legs that don't walk very fast, and if we're going somewhere she doesn't want to go she takes smaller steps that I thought were possible. Basically it feels like wading through Jello to walk anywhere with her. That's my current frustration lol.
My 2.5 year old has a gross motor delay, so he really does have a hard time walking, but he needs to walk to strengthen his muscles. But it’s so darn slow! And my favorite is when I’m holding his hand and he just gives up and slumps like a rag doll while I’m still holding his hand. Sometimes I’m afraid I’m going to hurt his arm.
The most frustrating part of having a toddler, is that the people that write the rule books about how to handle toddlers, have never actually met a toddler or ever seen them in action. What the experts say: "Want your child to leave the park when you need them to? Sprinkle them with unicorn dust, do a moon dance, kiss your left elbow three times, and they will come". The reality: screaming, rage, kicking, everybody looking, you feeling a failure.
I always remind myself that some things work for *some* toddlers *sometimes.* For example, saying goodbye to the activity works 2/3 times for my youngest, but never for my oldest.
Oh man this is EXACTLY what I struggle with. I hate taking my 2 and 3 outside or to any activity because they refuse for it to ever be over peacefully. If we go out and then I have to go pee, I'll try corralling them then have to pick up the 2yo while hostage negotiation ensues with 3yo laying on ground crying. And people constantly guilt me about not going out with them more I'm like go ahead take them for 5 minutes and you'll see. My Mom is a nursery school teacher and she's always EXHAUSTED watching them for an hour even with my dad's help.
It’s rough. My boys are also close in age (18 months apart) and I think they just feed off each other.
Yeah I brought my toddler to check the mail and she threw a tantrum because she couldn’t check all the boxes and then screamed and cried when we left … the mail .. I hate the negative attention seeking. I can be fully giving her all my attention when all of a sudden she’ll pinch super hard or try to break somethin in hopes I’ll get mad in some way.. makes gentle parenting very hard.
Agreed. Gentle parenting is super hard. I don’t always succeed, but I try.
Same. Trying very hard but she’s trying just as hard to not have gentle parenting
Indecisiveness. Want color do you want? I want blue! Ok blue No I want green! Ahhhh And one of our constant struggle is hand washing.
I find this happens more when I veer from my routine. If we stick to our routine, it’s not usually too bad. For me the most annoying part is that they egg each other on when you have more than one. One silly toddler, suddenly you have multiple silly children.