It's been a long week of painters and other service's quotes and set-up. And, of course, tantrums. I'm getting really scared that what I'm seeing from Eli is a preview of how he'll respond when the baby comes. My parenting question-de-jour is how do you handle the hitting, knocking over things, throwing toys aspect of tantrums? In the immediate sense that is. I mean, do I let Eli run around his room and tear it up, potentially damaging his belongings? I've been attempting to stop this behavior, but nothing has worked so far, and short of just holding him, I can't seem to stop it (he won't stay in a time out when he's this far gone). Anyway, as usual, please email or comment with any suggestions you have!The camera was packed away until today, so that is my excuse for no new pictures until now. A few new words Eli learned this week: strawberry, dirty, birthday, and gate. If you don't know what you're listening for, all of those except dirty are hard to make out. It's quite amazing how he's picking up new words each day though.
7 comments:
Oh, he is just adorable! I can't believe how much he's grown! Gray has his share of tantrums and we usually let him get his emotions out on his own unless he is going to hurt himself or something else. Then we'll step in an talk him out of it (or at least try!) Basically, you are not alone!!
Steph
I need some tips for the tantrums too... I am in the same boat. It's only going to get worse, I can tell... it's scaring me to death what the months ahead have in store. You are right.. holding is the only remedy... for now.
Hey! You're definitely not alone. I guess they're just discovering their emotions. Maya can definitely get out of hand when she can't control herself. I'll try to get her under control but she'll pull away or try to hit me so if I can pick her up, I'll just throw her in her crib until she calms down. If I can see the signs of her getting out of control, I'll try to talk her down. Otherwise, just put her somewhere where she can't hurt herself until she forgets about why she was mad.
One thing we learned with Ryan - he can throw a fit too - was that talking to him in the middle of it only made it worse. So, we put him in his crib and told him when he had a "happy heart" we would talk to him then. Sometimes he would scream for 10+ minutes. once he was calm we would talk to him. Once we became consistent with how we dealt with the tantrums they began to lessen. Alot of his tantrums and we are seeing with Pace as well stem from them not being able to communicate effectively with us and thus not get what they want. It's a learning process for us to figure out what they are communicating and for them to learn two things: 1) they cant always get what they want and 2)sometimes they have to learn to wait.
Pace is starting to throw tantrums! Much earlier than Ryan ever did but I think a lot of his stem from his lack of being able to do for himself. So I'm having to let him throw his fit so he will learn to do for himself instead of expecting us to do for him.
I'd use the crib as much as you can during this time. Esepcially with you being preggers! Take out his blanket and toys so it is just him in his crib and let him get it out. Then console him and talk to him about what happened.
Hope this helps. Just remember you aren't alone. I remember being preggers and dealing with it though. It wasn't easy! Prayers are with you!
I'd second (and third and fourth) what the others have to say. Sometimes you just have to let a tantrum burn out. The more you try to intervene, the more fuel you add to the fire. Much of a tantrum is communication. The child is showing you how upset they are. How you respnd depends on the child. I had one child that I needed to pretend to ignore completely and let him get it out on his own and another child that I just sat nearby and read (or pretended to) and every once in a while reassured him I was still there for him (simple, short phrases). The key was not reacting to what the child was doing unless he was in danger of hurting himself or causing expensive damage to the house.
We didn't use the crib because we were told they'd associate it with punishment instead of sleep (I've since had other mothers tell me its a bunch of hooey). Our kids had very few toys in their room so we just let them go. If they damaged something, we pointed it out to them when they were calm. Obviously, we couldnt let the damage things that would be a safety hazard (lights, windows, etc) If they tried to damage an expensive toy, we just removed it without comment. If they scuffed the wall, we made them clean it afterwards (mr clean magic erasers - just don't let the child have the sponge unsupervised because they are abrasive to skin).
We've used the Pack 'n Play for really bad tantrums...kind of a "time-out." It contains him so he can't destroy anything and it's not his crib, so he doesn't associate the tantrums with sleep. It's worked pretty well for us!
BTW, Eli is too cute. He & Jack seem very similar in a lot of ways!
One thing about the crib and bedtime ... the thing we were told b/c that was my fear too .. was when you put them in the crib to deal with this your actions/attitude is much different than when you are putting them to bed. Also anything they may use for bedtime is not given during this time so they can tell the difference between the two times. We also leave the lights on and no music so that he knows this is a different time. It hasn't had any affect on bedtime. Just a comment b/c I too worried about it affecting his routine ... bedtime was always an easy time for us and I Didn't want to rock that boat. :)
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