My son will be 18 mo on Wednesday. Until this past Monday, he's been a pretty happy-go-lucky kind of kid. As of Monday however, he's entered the screaming/tantrum portion of our program.
And he throws things. Everything and anything he can get his hands on.
We've been removing small objects when he's mad, attempting to distract him, letting him scream it out while standing a few feet away, encouraging more word usage, etc. But NOTHING seems to work!
All the self-help gurus say 'talk to your child about their feelings'. But he's 18 F'ing months old? Who has a functional conversation with a kid this young? He has great comprehension, but only produces words when he feels like it. We were doing baby sign language but then he just stopped. He'll still do the sign for 'all done' but he's quit using all the other words he learned.
He babbles in word-like meter all the time. Like he's talking, but just in Benjaminese. He still says mama, dada, shoe, go, going and go away fairly regularly. He'll say other new words for a week or two at a clip and then just stop saying them.
All signs point to frustration tantrums because he can't articulate what he wants clearly and I can't always guess what he's pointing at. He also really hates not being able to do what he wants (like opening the refrigerator and poking everything he can reach).
He's also throwing the occasional middle of the night tantrum. At first I thought he was having night terrors, but his behavior doesn't fit the symptom list for genuine night terrors. For example, last night he woke up at 2:30 screaming like someone stabbed him. Just sound asleep to screaming bloody murder in an instant. Hubs tried to get him to calm down for over 10 min. No dice. We changed him, gave him Tylenol (he's been teething off and on), rocked in the chair, walked around the room, etc. Eventually we just put him down on the floor and he ran straight for our room and tried to climb on the bed. We put him in bed with us, but he continued to scream and throw his two favorite toys over and over. At first he wouldn't even nurse, despite digging my boobs out of my shirt. Then he would nurse vigorously for a second or two and then unlatch and scream. We finally got him to to calm down by giving him a little milk and putting on his favorite Big Block Sing Song album. We put him back down in his crib around 3:30 and he slept until 7:15, his usual wake up time.
He's been waking up after every nap and most mornings being a grumpus. 30-45 min of inconsolable screaming. It's driving me bonkers.
So, more experienced moms of reddit, how did you handle this phase? Is there a way to encourage your kiddo to keep using words other than sheer repetition? How long did this period last for you? Any other answers to questions I haven't asked are also welcome.
Submitted May 08, 2015 at 11:11PM by Squintymomma http://ift.tt/1H47CX4 beyondthebump
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