Behavior of My 18M/o St My Whits End

Abbie went thru this starting before she was ONE. Alot of it had to do w/ her birth mom and her fears of just about everthing AND her lack of stimulus for Abbie.

We CONTINUED to nurture and stimulate her and give her CONFIDENCE in us and others we knew well. Eventually, she grew out of it. We CONTINUALLY encouraged her. There was a HUGE amount of anxiety, we feel, due to lack of confidence and nurturing on her mom's part.

The more we encouraged, helped her do things...like learn to climb and experience new things.....the better it got. NOW.......that child at 6, will try just about everything! She has an amazing amount of confidence in herself and all the experiences she's had and things she's learned. She's well aware of the fact that she's learned and experienced things that MANY other kids have not. As a result, she wants to help others learn and experience, too, even at 6!

Stop catering to her.
9-10 months is the Separation Anxiety time, not 18 months.
Make sure that she has times to play with other children.
Your doctor was right and trying to say that she's got YOUR number!
When you said the part about your husband stepping in to correct her behavior it tells me that you are reluctant to have expectations of her and that you are probably babying her.
She is not too young for a 1 1/2 minute time out!
Our granddaughter just had her first successful time out at this age.

First of all, let her throw her fit. She'll eventually wear herself out. Don't give her what she's throwing a fit for or it'll never end. We had this problem with my little brother for awhile. He'll be 5 soon. When he was a little younger he would get mad when our father would try to spend time with my sister's kids. Of course, my father and his wife would stop whatever they were doing when he would start throwing a fit and go to him. So when they had to start planning their life around his fits they realized they had created a monster. They are working with him now to try to end this nonsense. They let him throw his fits and try to ignore him. He definately doesn't get whatever it was he wanted that caused the fit. He has fewer fits now than he used to. Good luck to you. Hope you figure out what works for you.

She does it because she can. I mean - she throws fits because she can, and because she's getting the response she wants.

I "double dog dare" you guys the next time she throws her little tantrum to walk out of the room and see what happens. I'll bet that once she realizes she doesn't have an audience, she'll get up, go into whatever room you're in and start all over again. I say this because this is exactly what my now 5 year old daughter would do.

We started taking her to the food court at Castleton Mall. There's a little play area there. It would get her mind off of her "own little world" revolving around me and daddy and would start playing and running and having fun. Plus it would wear her out enough that she'd sleep well that evening.

With our 5 year old, we used to also "jokingly tease" with her whenever she'd start the "drama" and whail, I'd whail right back at her...."Ohhhhhhhh it's SUCH a tragedy....Ohhhhhh what a tragedy..." and soon enough she'd start laughing. This doesn't work with our 2 year old though. With her, we'll have to give her a nuk, and a buddy (stuffed animal) and walk away, just let her have her little party, and soon enough she'd get up and come see you wanting to be held. We'd hold her just for a bit.

With our 2 year old - a lot of it is just frustration because there's a communication barrier there. That's what usually starts up the terrible two's. Once she calms down and comes to us, we can usually say, "Okay - are you hungry or thirsty?" and start from there.

For what it's worth - and good luck!

Good morning, K.,

I know this is a really LONG response; sometimes I wish we could voice record our advice, so it would be faster!

I don't know how you feel about slings, but that was my life saver with my daughter. She was also very much a "mama's girl". Because I had a three year old son (and ran a home daycare) I could not deal with her crying pathetically while I just went about my day. I figured, if she feels she needs me, then she needs me - why deny her that? I didn't want her to be an insecure, clingy child for the rest of her life, so I gave her what she needed - ME! I wore her (what seemed like) constantly in the sling, for the first two years of her life. That left me hands free to do what I needed with the other children, it gave us a peaceful day, because she was utterly content, and it made it easy to feed her while she was still nursing. You'll notice I said "what seemed like". That's because, of course, it WASN'T constantly. Once she had the needed "mama time" she felt secure enough to get down and play for a while. And as she got older, those "whiles" became longer and longer, until she finally didn't feel the need to be in the sling.

I know that there are plenty of moms out there who are rolling their eyes at my response. But I have the proof that it worked. My daughter is now a very happy, independent, well adjusted six year old.

So, if your daughter is not big for her age, and you have a sling, that is my advice.

If you cannot do that, then I would advise you to pick her up when she needs it and go about your day. For example, she's awake now, and she only wants YOU to get her up, but you need to tend to your 3 yo. Go in, hug her for a minute, then say (with enthusiasm) "Okay, sweet girl, mama has to get breakfast ready and I need you to help me! Come on! I need help. You can help me pour the cereal!" Then let her "help" you get her sister's breakfast. Children LOVE to help, if they feel you really need it.

Continue this pattern, -- "okay, now we have to pick out some clothes to help sister get dressed, what do you think we should pick out?" Try to get her to walk with you, but if she balks, don't make a big deal out of it - just pick her up and take her along. "There; now we have to sort the laundry. Come on, we have lots of work to do and I need help." Each time you transition, try to get her to do it without you carrying her. Eventually she will want to move away from you and do something else that has caught her interest. And that will get more frequent and for longer periods, as the weeks pass.

Best of luck to you, however you decide to handle it. Hopefully it will get resolved sooner rather than later!

Blessings,
J.