My 18 month old son is obviously starting to really find his own mind and finding out what he can do/doesnt want to do.

Recently this can be a number of things:

Throwing toys at Mrs FD or myself, or the dog.

Biting Mrs FD or myself (only appears to be when he gets giddy) but if you say no or move him away, he will try even harder!

When we ask him to walk with us, he will turn around and run in the opposite direction.

Whenever we need to change his nappy he will have a right paddy and we physically have to hold him down to stop poo being smeared every where.

If he does some thing wrong we will say no and try and explain what he is doing wrong. He finds this funny and will then do it again. We have tried a naughty corner but this has no effect.

He’s not a bad lad, and we think he is just finding his mind/boundaries. Should we be getting worried about this being behaviour, or is it just a phase that all toddlers go through? Any ideas on how to stop some of the above would be appreciated.

Ta

We’ve taught Ms TT how to say sorry – word and sign. When she does something naughty or kicks or hits, we stop her, tell her what she did was wrong and make her say sorry. We’ve done this with other kids in playgroup etc if she has got a bit excited. It seems to be working. We’re also reinforcing the good behaviour with praise, rewards, stickers. We’re also trying not to use ‘no’ but find other ways of saying it – not sure, but seems a good thing.

A slap?

Funky, our lad has done this.

He went through a spell of biting other children at nursery – until one bit him back (which I think has stopped him)- left a right jaws-like mark on his arm!!

Slap? I dont think that would work yet unless he can understand/communicate/talk.

Completely normal. God I remember the nappy-tantrums, those can be horrific. 😯 It gets better, honest.

The best advice we had on this was to stay calm and be consistent (and you have to figure out the specific techniques yourself, cos you and your kid are different from everyone else).

That all sounds pretty normal to me. It gets better when they are about 3.
HTH

This is normal. Terrible twos from 14-18 months with all of ours.

Time-outs are your friend. Establish boundaries, be consistent.

Don’t take it personally.

Good luck.

Very little you can actually do except keep on showing them love and what’s right and wrong.

I too have the same problem- Rossi JR the elder (who is 4 in November) likes to get possesive over his toys when Rossi JR the younger (who is 2 on Christmas Eve) tries to play with them. This obviously involves him pushing, yelling, jumping on his brothers head etc.
Was thinking boys will be boys and just wait till one of them gets a girlfriend one day, but action has to be taken. Getting him to say sorry dosent work- he just does it anyway and says sorry afterwards! Threatening to throw said toys in the bin seems to work!
Rossi Jr the younger is no angel, i have recently seen him trying to get his big bro into trouble by falling over when stood next to him and bursting into tears holding his head.
Im not falling for that one!

Oh the joys of parenthood…..

The best advice we had on this was to stay calm and be consistent (and you have to figure out the specific techniques yourself, cos you and your kid are different from everyone else).

+1 on that advice.

Tried the naughty step?

We seem to have gone from the terrible two’s to the FURIOUS FOURS 😯

Sorry – i know that’s not really any help

Ok, so far we need to find another toddler to punch Jnr FD 🙂 otherwise its just another phase, which we kind of thought it was, but you have that doubt that its yourselves being bad parents.

The advice about remaining calm and consistent is what Mrs FD and myself are trying to do.

One thing that Mrs FD is doing is suggesting when he is naughty that we should say no and explain why, but if the bad behavious persists then putting him in the naughty corner and ignoring him for a minute or 2, is that the best approach at this young age?

We’ve just got out of that particular rut. He spent most of the summer in exile in the hall with his arms folded and his bottom lip stuck out so far that it was a trip hazard.

Perfectly normal.

In this house, if you go to the naughty corner, your time doesn’t start until you have stopped crying/howling/being a nob.

Then, at the end of your time, you only get out if you can explain what you did wrong (to make sure they understand why they went there), and apologise (mumbled or insincere apologies don’t count).

Then, when you have apologised, you get a cuddle and that is the end of the matter.

It has worked/does work with 2 out of the 3, and the third one is getting the hang of it slowly!

Yep, all normal, jnr snr now 3 and has just about come out of it, jnr jnr is 8 months and we fully expect more of the same…

All great advice here, we have removed toys, used the naugty step – it is important to tell them why they are there and leave them some time to stew – jnr snr used to say sorry as soon as he got there as he worked out this was what was expected of him….

The other piece of advice I would give is for only one of you to do the disciplining at a time – could be either – but they only need to hear it from one and the other back them up by not wading in and giving different / mixed messages to the original parent. Takes some trusting between partners but gives a strong message rather than a potentially diffuse or mixed one.

Good luck!

Naughty step works for us. Oh, and rather than saying no, try saying ‘sad/bad choices’ as its meant to show that it was their choice to bite/kick etc. A bit new-agey perhaps but I think he does have merit.

Be prepared to have loooooong stays on the naughty step though! I think our record is 45 minutes, going back every 3 minutes, his age at the time, for a sorry, no sorry? ok, another 3 minutes. Trouble is that they (and you) tend to forget what the original problem was at the time.

We’re now into the furious fours!

Whenever we need to change his nappy he will have a right paddy and we physically have to hold him down to stop poo being smeared every where.

Sounds like my one year old! 😯

No real advice, but just to say: we’re in pretty much exactly the same boat and you have my sympathy.

18 months old. Lots of pouty lips, “No!”, refusing food she normally likes, asking for food then taking one mouthful, nappy tantrums, stalling before bedtime, biting (though I think we’re through that now), throwing things, and overly dramatic throw-herself-on-the-floor crying.

All fun and games eh?

sell the little brats

as others have said, agree how to handle it with your other half and to make sure you agree boundaries and make sure its consistent.

Then naughty step. Or count to 3, then naughty step. No point in shouting, winds you up and he will think its a result.

A couple of times my daughter tested to see what happened and it was naughty step and then her bedroom. The later might seem a great option but your kid wants to get your attention and being on their own is not what they want. Tell him he has to sort himself out and only come down when he’s ready.

Above all, play it calm and cool, make sure hes in a safe place and cant hurt himself, firm, strong but try and look unconcerned.

Regarding sending them to the bedroom.

We weren’t sure about this. We didn’t want her to associate her bedroom or bed with punishment, as we were worried it might affect her sleep?

Justified concern or not?

Justified concern or not?

I don;t think they’d read that far into it. We use the step method, if they continue to shout and holla on the step then they get sent to there rooms to sit on the bed. Only been sent to there bed a handful of times though. Our little girl was fine, our little boy quite frankly needs a good shoeing sometimes, but you bite your lip. I’m hoping he’ll grow out of it!!

oddjob – Member
That all sounds pretty normal to me. It gets better when they are about 30

Fixed that for ya.

All normal, and fortunately there’s always someone else with worse kids than your own. ‘What to Expect: The Toddler Years’ gives a good clue to what to expect, funnily enough, as they age and explains a bit about why they do what they do and how it relates to their developmental milestones.

The other piece of advice I would give is for only one of you to do the disciplining at a time

Yep- i totally agree. I let Mrs Rossi do the telling off, basically if i do it they just laugh at me. But Mrs Rossi has a tone of voice that says ‘i bloody well mean it!’.

Regarding sending them to the bedroom.

We weren’t sure about this. We didn’t want her to associate her bedroom or bed with punishment, as we were worried it might affect her sleep?

Any advice for us Rossi’s- we live in a first floor one bedroom flat. Thats 4 of us in one room. I dont want to use the bathroom as theres taps in there (and we’d like him to use the toilet appropriately!) and the small hallway isnt an option as it’d block the front door.

Harry the Spider, thanks for making me 😆 My 3yr old does the bottom lip thing, how do they know to do that?

We have 2 boys – 5 and 3. Had various suggestions as to how to handle “bad” behaviour. Usefulness varies but I do think that ignoring (or trying to) the bad behaviour and praising/rewarding the good is prob among the best we were given. Think it can only be applied to some aspects of what they do though (naughtiness at mealtimes) as obviously a bite/head-butt/hit can’t be ignored. Don’t hold back on the “NO’s” when they do this. Netmums is a good place to go for advice/support when you want to dispose of the little f*****s sweet angels.

Used time-outs until about a year ago. Now use 1-2-3 Magic, works brilliantly but 18 months is prob too young. Started when little one was about 2.

Good luck, it’s all just a stage (really helpful to hear when in the midst of it all) and remember, there’s always eBay or putting them up for adoption 😉

It all sounds really normal behaviour.

As they develop they start to want to control their environment. Saying ‘no’ to everything is one way of doing this.

We used the ‘naughty step’ a lot. Also, don’t take a stand on things that don’t matter. If he wants to wear odd socks, let him. Or let him have a choice of what to eat. If he feels more in control it may help.

That all sounds pretty normal to me

Sorry, Not to me. 😕

” Establish boundaries, be consistent.”

This ^^

My 3yr old does the bottom lip thing, how do they know to do that?

I have a theory that they learn it from their mothers 😀

don’t take a stand on things that don’t matter

VERY good advice!

Support Hora’s theory, they bite until they get bitten back, then it magically stops…

Both mine had three clear warnings ie. “first warning” and “second warning”, both with the wagging finger then “right, come here, don’t you ever, ever..” John Cleese style telling off whilst being taken to naughty step.

I’d definitely be illustrating the lesson on biting with a practical demonstration..

If they’re naughty they usually just need a tiny bit less or more love and patience innit

Terrible two’s coming early is a good omen according to folklore..

and make sure that when you send them to the step / wherever that there is nothing to distract them from their purgatory and water down the punishment.

Sent Eddy to the step a while back, left him there for a good long while, went to have a word and realised that the door to the living room was partly open and he had sat himself on the 5th step up just where he could get a good view of the telly and sat doing his time watching whatever was playing on screen at the time. Now the telly goes off or the room door is closed… sneaky these bairns.

We have tried a naughty corner but this has no effect.

Do or do not do, there is no try.

Seriously. Naughty step (we had a naughty mat which made it portable) but you’ve got to stick with it. No outside distractions, and the moment your arse leaves contact with it the clock gets reset. In the early days that would mean maybe 6 or 7 resets but don’t give in.

But also positive attention. Do you spend enough time with him when he’s being good and praising him for that or is the temptation ‘he’s being good / playing nicely, let’s leave him to it’ so the only time he gets attention is by kicking off.

Another thing that hasnt yet been mentioned and that i was reminded of this morning is DO NOT LAUGH when they do something naughty!

Rossi elder called Rossi younger a F….ing B…..rd this morning when Rossi younger nicked his dinosaur. At once i went to tell him off, but the obvious smirk on my face ruined the whole thing. So i had to go to the bathroom and 😆 until i composed myself.

Point two is ALWAYS restrain yourself- i was undoing my pedals the other day when the spanner slipped. The obvious happened (which is where Rossi elder got the swear word from) and i didnt know at the time that he was stood behind me.
Until he fell on the floor laughing. B…..rd !

Zulu, I am his mother 😯 sure he didn’t learn it from me…

Personally, I am absolutely longing, wishing and madly impatient for half-term to be over or I’m either gonna go mad or damage something

I have nothing helpful to add as we are expecting our first in March. I am beginning to suspect parenthood may not be like the pictures in the magazines Mrs LJ keeps buying. 😯

LimboJimbo – Member
I have nothing helpful to add as we are expecting our first in March. I am beginning to suspect parenthood may not be like the pictures in the magazines Mrs LJ keeps buying.

Aah, don’t be put off. Little ones are really sweet, precious little bundles. No honestly, nothing can better the feeling of holding your little newborn baby in your arms (uh-oh, I’m getting sentimental). It’s incredibly special.

However, I realised today that I’m really glad I met our 2 little Nich’s but can I give them back until they are ready to be nice to me?

And Congratulations 🙂

I affectionately refer to our 2 as shithead 1 and shithead 2.
SH1 is 2.5, and SH2 is 10 months.
My advice is train them like you would train your dog ( I don’t mean that in a derogatory way by any means!!!) Lots of praise and treats (SH1 likes stickers!) when they do the right thing, and firmly tell them they have been naughty/ done wrong followed by a visit to the naughty step/ corner. If they are kicking off, try to ignore it.
Trouble is, SH1 now quite likes being in the naughty corner, so we have now got to find another punishment!! Hey ho the joys of parenthood!! She has been going through the terrible twos since she was about a year old, and although she is getting better in some ways she is worse in others.
I usually get a sorry off her though, and then we give her a big hug and all is well. . . . Until the next tantrum!

I would say don’t get too worked up about little things as someone above has said. We haven’t tried slapping, although I am not against it. I just think she is still a little young for that, as we are still trying to instill a sense of right and wrong.

Either way, enjoy the little man. It becomes much more fun when they start talking!!