A new Baby and Toddler Tantrums Have Gone Through The Roof!

This is a Typical Toddler Behaviour Case Study

Hi Karen, we did a phone consultation a few months back regarding my 3-year-old boy Jake and managing toddler behaviour. At the time the tantrums really weren’t that bad but we wanted to nip it in the bud before they got worse.

All has been going well until recently. We moved house in early May and had a baby girl 2 weeks ago. He took to the move fine but this week his toddler behaviour and tantrums have gotten worse. So I’m not sure if it’s linked to the new baby.

At the moment he flips from happy to whinging in a matter of seconds. He seems to kick off for no reason. He’s in daycare 5 days a week so the 4 of us are only really together a lot on the weekends.

Toddler Behaviour

An example of his toddler behaviour: yesterday we went for a walk down to Maroubra beach. He brought his bike then 2 mins in didn’t want it then wanted it, didn’t want his helmet on, wanted it on. When he cries he doesn’t even make any sense in what he’s saying - it’s more baby talk.

Then we went for lunch, he got ice cream but then kicked off because it wasn’t in a tub, then when he got the tub he started again because he couldn’t scoop some out. It’s one thing after the other at the moment. He never used to be like this. He’s also started whinging if there’s stuff on his fingers, e.g. melted ice cream.

Bossy and Demanding

He’s also very bossy and demanding. He gets jealous when we have visitors over and when having a conversation with them he’ll start demanding our attention.

We also went out for a short stroll yesterday evening and he kicked off because of the wind. He’s sensitive to the wind and really loud noises (like a drill).

Just wondering if you could give us some tips/pointers to manage this phase. I’m assuming it’s a phase and it’s typical of a 3-year-old?

New Baby On The Scene

Any change in a strong-willed child's world is going to flick their switch and escalate behaviours. Children with strong temperaments do not like change at all. They are likely to act out, tantrum and refuse to do as you asked. This is when their defiant little streak comes to the fore. You will see behaviours you have never laid eyes on previously.

Your well-behaved toddler has suddenly turned into a fire breathing dragon and you probably never saw any of this coming. Previously they were the centre of your world, they had no competition at all. Now you've brought a newer better model home and they've worked out that it's here to stay! Eeek. If you asked any self-respecting toddler if they wanted a sibling I'm sure you'd get a resounding NO!! Especially if they knew what it involved...

Escalation of Toddler Behaviour

When children feel stressed and threatened they will escalate behaviour to get your attention in an attempt to get back to where they were. Change feels uncomfortable and the strong-willed child struggles with change. They may walk around the baby who is laid playing on his mat on the floor looking at you out of the corner of their eye pretending to nearly stand on the baby.

They are testing you and what you are going to do about it. Remember a toddlers job is to test the boundary. Whereas your job is to pull the boundary back to where it should be. This push-me pull-me resistance is a normal part of the toddler years and it is them testing your boundary. Remember boundaries are creating security and they need to see a firm boundary.

Working Out His New World

Your toddler has gone from being the focus of your entire world to suddenly being on the outer. Your attention is strongly focussed as it should be on the new baby. And he is acutely aware of this. To try and get your focus back on him he tries to grab your attention the best way he knows how. By doing naughty and cheeky things he knows will raise a reaction from you.

The Expectation of Good Behaviour

There is an unsaid expectation from you the parent that all behaviour should be positive or good. Children naturally want to behave well. However good or positive behaviour hardly features on her radar because we see it as expected.

Naughty or negative behaviours alert our alarm bells and the flashing amber and red lights in our brain are triggered to notify us. And the toddler knows this. Suddenly they are the focus of our full attention again. The more we pay attention to bad or naughty behaviour the more it will appear. So how do we get rid of this and turn this around?

Managing The Toddler Behaviour

Here are my top strategies to help you

Use labelled praise to increase the likelihood of more positive behaviours e.g. well done Jack for putting your toys away, high-5. The emphasis needs to be in this area.
Use the child's game as the glue to stick it all together and increase the chances of success
Consequences for naughty or dangerous behaviour - Time Out or Logical Consequences for over 2.5-3 years
Bring them in close, examples of this are read a book to them whilst feeding the baby
Get them involved in helping you prepare meals, use a learning tower, housework, washing and putting the washing out, helping change the baby etc.
Once they feel helpful and valued things will change in a positive direction, it will take approx. 7-10 days to turn things around.
Read books about emotions to help him navigate these new feelings e.g. The Brothers Quibble by Aaron Blabey, My Book of Feelings by Trace Moroney

Tags: fil_Toddler - Behaviour Food & Sleep toddler behaviour toddler development toddler tantrums

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Karen really understand Toddler Behaviour

I have been going to Karen since my daughter was 7 weeks old. Even through her toddler years, Karen has been spot on and has helped immensely with toddler behaviour related questions. Karen guided me through potty training issues and how to best navigate them based on my strong willed child.

Nurture Parenting - knowledgeable, supportive and gentle

Karen was understanding, kind and supportive with clear strategies to help improve our toddlers sleep. She explained what was happening and gave us a plan to follow. This is the second child we have used Karen’s methods with and I would recommend Nurture Parenting to any parents wanting to better understand their babies sleep and gently help them to self soothe and sleep better.

After buying Karen’s newborn program and successfully using it on baby 2, i decided to start even earlier with baby 3. I got a little confused on certain things since she’s preemie but Karen helped me go back to my core and center, listened attentively and answered all my questions. She also went beyond that and shared new ideas with me. It was ace. I might book another in a few weeks if needed. For now baby is doing everything by the book

Advice and videos are so clear and succinct

I just wanted to write and say thank you. We started your program almost three weeks ago, and it has dramatically changed our babies sleep for the better. Toby (10 months) went from waking 6+ times each night. We fumbled during each wake, as we offered dummies, bottles, whatever we thought would stop the crying for a moment. The only thing that we achieved, was waking him up even more and frustrating the **** out of him!

The first night of magic presence took 40 minutes, and now he is down within minutes once he is placed in the cot. We have had a few sleep throughs as well.

Your advice and videos are so clear and succinct. We found them so easy to follow. To compare, we looked back on a sleep consultant plan that we paid $300+ for with our firstborn and were stunned at how complicated and convoluted the plan was. No wonder it didn't work!!

I was so nervous about going back to work being so sleep deprived, and I was also concerned about how Toby would cope with the transition to day care. However, I now feel a lot more confident (and well rested!).

All the best and thank you again.

Christina

I'd pay 10 X what I did for this sleep program

never wanted to sleep train, I didn’t think I could personally tolerate listening to my baby cry endlessly. It surprised me how quickly my 7mo picked this up. Night one we removed the dummy and overnight feed cold turkey. We’re on night 11 and bub has been sleeping through almost every night since night 2 (we’re still battling early wakings every now and then). Day naps have also improved remarkably! I’ve also got one of the mums in my mother’s group onto this who is having huge success with her 8mo boy who she fed to sleep previously!

As my title says, I would pay 10x the amount for this program knowing how well it worked! Listening to the crying whilst in the room with bub was hard, but I know my presence was reassurance for her and it is the only reason I went with the program!!

Thanks so much Karen for this program, it’s working beautifully for us and I know it’s setting us up for long term success! I will recommend to anyone who will listen 😂

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