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I think this might be one of the hardest parts of being a parent of a toddler. My baby is a sweet boy and his well behaved, but he does have moments that when he doesn't get what he wants, he has a total meltdown. It doesn't really happen often, but when it happens, its pretty bad. Well last night , at bed time we had an "episode."
We have a set routine that starts around 7:30pm and It goes something like this: He drinks his milk while watching his favorite bed time show, after that its clean up time and then finally daddy helps with brushing his teeth. He is usually in bed between 8:30- 9:oo PM. This is a process that takes about an hour.
Well, last night , we were okay until daddy said that it was time to brush his teeth. He started screaming yelling and throwing stuff on the floor, you name it , he did it. He calmed down long enough to get his teeth cleaned, but when I said it was bed time, it started all over again.
I tried staying calm and collected, I tried telling him that it was bed time in a nice way. I tend to ignore him when he gets like this and that works most of the time because he will stop crying and he will calm down all by himself. For some reason, last night, he was just not having it. I know that he seemed a little more tired than usual, but I mean, its not like we don't do this everyday. I lost my patience, what can I say, mommy has her moments too.
When I finally got him to calm down, I explained to him that he was a good boy and good boys don't behave that way. I told him I loved him kissed him good night and that was the end of that.
Please tell me, how do you guys handle tantrums? Do you ignore? put them in timeout? what is your technique. If you have advise, please share, please.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
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8 comments:
I ignore her....but this only works when the grandparents arent around.. because they dont like to hear her cry. I check first to make sure she didnt hurt herself.. but if its just a- I want somethig and youre not giving it to me tantrum... IGNORE. lol
She calms down in like 1 minute.. then its back to playing and fun times.
Our daughter is 29 months so it's possible to talk to her and ask her to use her words. I usually ask her to look at my eyes... during the rare tantrum she's usually not. That almost always breaks the tantrum for a few seconds. I explain what I understand her to be saying (just knowing she's understood seems to help sometimes) and then I tell her calmly how it's going to go. I never ever give in. I never lose my cool. I know it's hard, but in the long run they will be happier for the consistent fair predictable behavior from you. That's this daddy's opinion. Check back in 10 years and we'll see how that's going. ;)
I don't have kids so I don't know what I would do. I know when my nephew was younger my sister would leave the room he was throwing the tantrum in. He would eventually realize she wasn't paying attention to it and stop. He basically just did it to get a "rise" out of her. Hopefully tonight goes more smoothly for ya!!
:)
Rachel
Thank you guys for your comments
Wow, that's all you had to do to calm him down? Lucky you! For me it all depends on where the tantrum is and what the cause is. My 4 yr old is the tantrum prone one, and if its because he hasn't eaten in a while and his head is starting to spin, I make him eat. If its happening in public the first thing I do is get him out of wherever we are (store, etc.) Often, its because he is just really tired, and we'll tell him he needs to have a time out in his room and he usually relaxes eventually and just falls asleep. I keep trying everything til its over!
Yea, usually Tonight he tried but I was too tired to lose my patience lol
Ugh tantrums are the worst. If it's over something dumb I just ignore, send to his room to calm down if it lasts too long and try to distract him.
Poor Mama! That's hard. I try to ignore Aidan when he has those kinds of episodes . . . at 6. But, sometimes I do get upset and have to try and step away from the situation for a minute. I don't have any awesome tricks but I'd love to hear what ends up working for you. Good luck my dear!
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