Brooklynn LOVES her sister, don't get me wrong. That relationship has gone much smoother than I even hoped for. She gives her kisses and is so cute with her, she's even super protective of her. But she has been ACTING OUT so much.
When I was having contractions while I was still in labor, Brooklynn found an entire bottle of my lotion from our room and brought it out next to her chair and took the lid off and just started dumping and shaking it out on the carpet.
Then the day we got back she dumped out: an entire bottle of gas drops, and an entire bottle of Vitamin D drops.
Her first nap when my Mom got here she just was taking forever to go to sleep, even though she was being REALLY quiet. I finally went in there because whatever she was playing with didn't sound familiar and she had gotten into my Mom's bag: she had opened every single piece of gum in an entire pack, a whole bag of cough drops were opened (she wasn't eating all of this, just opening them) her camera was all smeared up, there was a book in there, I don't know if it's ruined or not...basically all my Mom's stuff. I felt so bad. So we cleaned that up and we were NOT HAPPY.
She also has had another poop-smearing-on-the-wall incident. (And she managed to keep both her onesie AND her diaper on this time. now we've switched to all footy pajamas and a onesie at naps AND bedtime.)She also had another poop incident, this one was very mild because I caught her in the act, so it was really only on her hands and legs and just a little on the sheets this time. But REALLY? (I'd rather she get into my Mom's bag every day over the poop.)
One day she woke up from her nap and the two board books I got her were completely PEELED apart.
EVERY day she has taken apart her night light and EVERY day I yell at her. I finally had to take it out of her room. The day I did that about 2 minutes after I closed the door her nightstand fell over. I'm not sure if she was on top of it or just pulled it over or what.
Yesterday at the store we got her a thing that had wooden things to draw on and it came with some markers. We opened it at the store to keep her busy and she writes all over herself. (I think this is fairly normal for her, but my Mom thought of it as a naughty thing so I'm putting it on here.)
So basically, I'm so torn over what to do with her. On one hand I know this is a hard time for her, it's rough being the center of the universe and then having to share Mommy & Daddy's attention with a little baby, who doesn't even do much besides eat sleep and poop. We're trying to give her lots of special attention to try and limit this behavior, but at the same time we don't want to let her get away with this naughty behavior. I don't want to be like, "Aaw, you smeared poop on the wall. Here's a special reward for you, why don't you come have a cookie?" Because I know ultimately this will be worse. But where is that line? Why is it so hard? Thank goodness Gabby is such an easy baby, she is so good. I can't imagine how hard it would be if she were a fussy baby.
2 comments:
Bethany I feel for you so much to have to go through this. I really have no suggestion for you other then come and join me at my bible study and GET AWAY!!!!! LOL We meet at COS in Wayne Friday mornings and they have child care there for Brooklyn and you can take Gabby with you to the study. This is a group of women studying the bible and we all have young children so we pass along our rough weeks and pray for each other through it. It has been AMAZING for me to know I'm not alone. Let me know if you are interested and I'll give you some more details
I divide the unwanted behaviors into two categories: a) normal toddler curiosity which are a huge pain in the ass but innocent, and b) attention-seeking acting out.
For A I try to calmly and patiently validate her interest in whatever she was doing and then explain why I don't want her to do it while I prevent her from doing it anymore. This seems to work for her. An example would be climbing onto my nightstand and dismantling the humidifier. I'll admit- the humidifier looks pretty cool and if I were a toddler I'd probably want to take it apart and figure out where the mist comes from too. So I say something like, "I know that looks really neat, huh? See how the mist comes out? Please do not play with it because it is not a toy and it might break." and I remove her from the night stand and give her something else to do.
For B I try to tell her to please stop in a low tone, physically stop her if need be, and then ignore the fallout. I figure giving attention to attention-seeking behaviors is like negotiating with terrorists. If she persists, I remove her from the area where she's making trouble and ignore the inevitable tantrum that follows.
Then I make a really big deal out of the wanted behaviors, like if she shares a toy with a friend, or I see her going for the humidifier and she stops herself. Then I gush over how proud I am of her and give her a big hug and a kiss, and usually recount the story to Daddy in Stella's presence when he gets home from work so that he can reinforce the positive message.
Granted, I don't have an infant so this is easier for me to do. And sometimes I wind up yelling instead of doing any of these things. Depends on the day. Oh, also- Toddlers are such little turds sometimes, aren't they?
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