Parents worry about toddler tantrums

“Multiple times a week. Kiddo is a happy, sweet kid most of the time, but when they get set off — usually about something small like it’s time to get out of the bath — we still have these huge meltdowns. Usually it’s between 5 - 15 minutes from beginning to end, but can occasionally be 30 min or more depending on the circumstances. Just want to know if this is still typical and expected at this age? Their younger sibling has meltdowns much much less frequently, and not as extreme. submitted”

“My daughter is almost 18 months old and has honestly been a very high needs child since birth. She cries and fusses a lot, gets overwhelmed easily and can be incredibly difficult to handle at times. I also get overstimulated quite easily, and since having a baby I’ve developed really intense PMS. During my luteal phase I can feel extremely hormonal and irritable, so some days are already a struggle. Then there’s my partner. Since having a child, I’ve found myself becoming increasingly irritated”

“My son is a little over two years old and he’s been pushing the limits recently. He’s at an age where he knows when he’s doing the wrong thing, but I’m not sure he fully understands consequences just yet. We’ve been doing a lot of time out, but I just don’t think it’s very effective. Honestly, he seems to think it’s kind of fun almost like a game lol. I speak to him very sternly and seriously when he is in the wrong and that does illicit a reaction out of him. I’m just not sure what the best cou”

“To start, we have an appointment with the pediatrician next week where I will share my concerns. I’m not looking for medical advice, just want to hear from maybe prior experience. I have 2 boys. 2 year old and an almost 7 month old (next week). My concerns are around my 7 month old, and if I have delayed in his development because my 2 year old takes up ALL of my attention. I’m at stay at home mom and my husband maybe gets 3 hours in the evening before bedtime. Concerns: - 7 month old does not b”

“Trying to find a good resource on correcting behavior. My little one is 2, and recently she’s been a bit wild. Throwing tantrums if we take something away, yelling, grabbing, etc. Usually I talk her through this in a neutral tone. However I have been finding myself in more and more situations where I have been reactively raising my voice. For example, every time I’m try to help her pants back on after pottying, she’s monkeying and wiggling around. Today she bumped her head on the sink counter so”

“My (24f) son is 2 years and some change, and MY GOLLY, he is CRAZY? Like, Idk if he's crazy or not actually, because I've never been around kids and this is my first. If I don't give him my constant attention he FLIPS OUT, like if I sit down and try to do anything other than playing with him he will just join me and start pushing me or go "EEE EEE EEE" Idk if some of yall will understand the ee ee ee but iykyk. And it is overstimulating for sure. So I can't sit”

“I have a 3.5 and 1 yo. My 3 year old is in a REALLY ROUGH place behaviorally and it is AWFUL being in our house with him. He’s mostly fine outside and out of the house but at home he’s literally terrible. I’m at my wits end. Today it rained all day and we were stuck inside and I realized what this winters gonna look like. I’m scared 😭 submitted by /u/moluruth [link] [comments]”

“my 13 month is a very sensitive boy and kinda always has been. if we’re at home alone he absolutely thrives and is the happiest ever. but anytime we’re out at a restaurant or someone’s house he just melts down. at first I thought it was just sound sensitivity to babies crying or kids screaming and crying but I then realized its anywhere “new”. whenever we’re at someone’s house or at a restaurant and even sometimes at the park he’ll fuss and whine and want to be held the entire time and even then”

“Today we had two horrible tantrums. Threw his whole body to the floor and screamed so loud both times, I am surprised the neighbors didn't knock. First was we were hanging out on the couch. He decided he wanted off, so he did. He then entered his play pen that is infront of the couch, came to the side closest to me, and threw a tantrum because I was not picking him up immediately. Like why leave 😂 Second was I was feeding him a pouch and letting him hold the teether cracker. He ran out of c”

“I do not lose my calm. I keep telling myself that. But the 2000th time my 10 month old starts corkscrew movement when changing the diaper and puts up a fight as if this is the first time he's getting a diaper changed and it is something painful, I can't help feeling this rage, this helplessness. I don't EVER let that feeling come out and just let it dissipate by singing out some made up song about diapering, but i don't want to be angry at him because he's a tiny little guy w”

“My 2nd kid is now 25 months old. She was the most pleasant baby and I thought she had the easiest temperament. Something changed when she was 15 months old. It’s progressively gotten worse and now she just seems so upset all the time. She’s actually pretty good with language but she throws tantrums all the time and everything seems like a fight. My oldest is now 4, she was a lot easier, is at a wonderful, fun age now. I’m dreading that my 2 year old will be this difficult forever. I’m just hopin”

“My 15 month old is at the stage where he randomly gets frustrated at something (I can’t always tell what it is), and he becomes inconsolable. It comes out of nowhere sometimes and he starts swatting at everything in his way. I know he can’t regulate his emotions yet, but I really don’t know what to do when this happens. I try to talk to him softly, I try to give him what I think he wants (he throws it in his rage), or I hold him. During these tantrums, nothing seems to work and I start getting f”

“My baby just turned one and she’s completely different and I feel totally lost and overwhelmed. She just started having tantrums and I’m not sure if we’re handling them correctly. On top of that, all of a sudden she has the craziest stranger danger ever and wouldn’t even let any of her grandparents hold her for 5 seconds when we’re home recently (we live out of state). I feel really overwhelmed and am just looking for any type of guidance on how to deal with this transition. I feel like every da”

“My nearly 4yo is, and has always been, very frustrated whenever she is incapable of achieving something she wants. She'd be in a frustrated state and refuses help and refuses to stop and cries hysterically about her not being able to do it herself. An example of an event from tonight. We usually eat multiple days per week with chopsticks. She always has her own child version of chopsticks with a helper that's super easy to use, but tonight she wanted to use the adult ones. She struggled”

“Hi everyone, I need some perspective on my 23-month-old daughter's behavior around fixations, transitions, and repetition. I'm trying to figure out if this is just a normal toddler stage for a very curious kid, or if it points to something else (like low frustration tolerance or difficulty with cognitive flexibility). She has advanced language skills for her age (speaks in 4–5 word sentences) and is extremely curious during the day, asking endless questions ("How do they dry raisins”

“Hello fellow dads. Got the difficult news today that my 4 year old is not handling preschool well. Anytime he has to transition from one thing to another he throws a big tantrum, and will usually flop on the floor and bang his head and stuff. He has has even hit teachers and students. For context, he has a speech delay and his therapist told us the smacking/flopping is fairly common until he develops better tools to express himself. So we were expecting some of this but apparently its like all d”

“Hi, really need help as at a loss. When I feed my newborn my 2.5 year old wants me to put him down. She’s got better in the day but in the night she can have a full meltdown, kicking and screaming. Advice I’ve seen like give a special job, activity basket etc doesn’t work at night as it’s too late to do that. She’s really good with him apart from this. submitted by /u/Normal-Climate2134 [link] [comments]”

“My daughter has never been an easy baby by any means but omg. The past few days the tantrums have been so bad. The screaming the kicking. She's fed she's eaten she's napped all of the things. I cried today I'm so stressed. I know it's just a phase. But I'm so tired. Not to mention she's going through a sleep regression and screams between 1-2 am until I bring her in my room. I just needed to vent. I love my baby girl but I'm tired. submitted by /u/Exis”

“Struggling SAHM here. I wake up and feel almost instant anxiety, when I engage with toddler, and sporadically so throughout the day. I often tear up after a couple hours of her activity and tantrums especially. I feel like I can hardly complete a thought or action with the new increase of toddler demands unless I take her outta the house which isn’t sustainable daily. Toddler is 20 months and constantly moving. She’s gotten a bit more vocal about her needs. She won’t play independently much when”

“My 2 years old son has hearing impairment in both ears and needs hearing aids. Recently, he has been taking them off when he's mad at us and we have to sign to him in order for us to discipline him. After that, if he doesn't put them on we'll just talk, not sign to him, if he wants to hear, he has to put the aids on. But here's the problem: his talking is not getting better if he can't hear. We've tried forcing them on his ears, bribing, nothing works. It's his way of”

“Hi everyone! My babies 2.5 years old. He’s not speaking much but he does know basic signs and I can tell what he needs/wants most of the time. He can say done and sign it, he did it for a couple of months but all of a sudden he’s just throwing his food all over the place again. I thought we were finally over that stage. He takes the entire plate and just throws it on the floor when I’m not looking for .2 seconds. It’s driving me insane!! Ketchup all over the walls, dogs eating a bunch of food, j”

“My toddler is 17 months old. He was the unhappiest baby on earth. I was aware that he was not trying to give me a hard time but he was actually having a hard time but his first year of life was pure hell for me. Colic, always discontent, angry and frustrated all the time. Things got a bit better when he started to walk at 14MO but he's still so incredibly difficult. I am just so mad that I've been running excel spreadsheets in my mind for almost 1.5 years now all the time to avoid him ge”

“I have a 2.5 yr old and a 6 month old. While I want to gentle parent and I do incorporate that daily, more than once a day, I do scream at my toddler and feel myself struggling to control my rage. This has been difficult since my 2nd pregnancy and while it has gotten better postpartum, it's still not who I thought I would be as a mom. When I'm bfeeding my younger one or holding her and my husband or mom are unavailable, it's also not possible to show boundaries and consequences to my”

“So this morning my 3 year old had a melt down over some dumb crap. (He wanted one type of milk, we didn’t have that type, he lost it). You know normal 3 year old stuff. I decided to let him just regulate by himself. I put head phones in and would periodically ask him if he was done crying or not. Eventually he was done and we moved on. Like 5 minutes nothing crazy. The alternative would have been me trying to show him different things or distract him or basically like give his tantrum more atten”

“My baby girl just turned 11m old. She is a strong willed little human. She is also very loud in general. If she has something in hand and if we take it from her she screams so soo much. Lime yesterday we met few friends and their kids. They are like 6m older than her. She took my friends kids toy and I asked her to return in. My friends kid started crying so took the toy from her hand to give back but she started screaming so loud that my friends kid got scared and he started crying a lot. Even”

“Im at a loss. I have a sweet little 3 year old boy who WON’T listen unless it suits him. Not to us telling him to stop running away (safety issue), not to short simple instructions (1 parters, framed positively whenever possible because I know negatives can be harder to process), not to anything that doesn’t interest him. You can literally tell when he’s tired of listening, it’s like he turns his ears off. I have no idea how to handle this because I was spanked growing up but strongly disagree w”

“She's 17 months old. She does the same things all the time. She puts her leg in that area between the bed and wall and she cries for my help. Two minutes later same thing. And it can goes like that 30 times if I don't move her. Nonstop. Like literally I just helped you, why you're keep putting your leg there and crying again when it gets stucked? Tomorrow is the same thing. And so many similar things like that. Putting her finger somewhere and it gets stucked and cries and it's b”

“The title says it all: we desperately need help with our toddler and his tantrums he's had lately. He is not quite 2.5 years old. In the last 2 months, we have had HUGE changes. New baby in July, started daycare in late August. He loves his sister, and loves going to daycare (he asks to go back when we get home!), but these are two huge shifts in his life, so I understand that tantrums are to be expected. He's little and his whole world just got rocked. But we still need help! It seems l”

“My 27 MO has been wanting to do everything herself, if I did something out of the order of things in her mind, it’s meltdown city. It’s so frustrating. Tonight I’m getting her to bed, I usually lie next to her and wait for her to fall asleep. She recently took liking of using a small blanket. She wants to adjust the blanket to cover her feet and cover her neck at the same time (it’s a small blanket and she’s a tall girl so it doesn’t fit). Can you imagine how many times she adjusts and fixes the”

“My baby girl just turned 11 months. She's our first. She's recently started throwing a conniption when she's not in the same space as us. If we leave her in her room or playpen to cook dinner or go take a shower she melts down. Scream crying, just a snotty slobbery mess. We're at an impasse on how to deal with it. Husbands logic is sound. He thinks if I go to her while she's crying I'm giving her dopamine and feeding the cycle of crying gets me attention. He understands s”

“My son is 14 months old now and it's so hard to have public outings sometimes. He learned to walk at 12 months and since then, doesn't want to be held or contained in any way when we go out. This makes restaurants, malls, fairs, or almost any outing difficult because all he wants to do is run around and get into everything. If try to carry him, sit him in my lap, put him in the stroller, etc he cries and fusses and struggles until he's put down. Meanwhile, I see other parents toddler”

“Hi everyone, We are currently going through it with our almost 2.5-year-old. We had our second child on July 16th, and since then it's been pretty darn tough with our toddler. He really is quite a sweet boy, but it seems like the tantrums are just so much more frequent, and they happen about literally anything. I am at my wits end and I cannot figure out how to help him. We are trying everything that we can to help with the tantrums: help him sit with the feelings, validate what he's goi”

“I have a 3 year old, she is always having a tantrum and it’s becoming unbearable. I can’t even go for a walk down the street or play in the back yard without the whole neighbourhood hearing her have a tantrum over anything. Like the walk ending, climbing up the play house but not willing to go down the slide, not wanting to listen, not wanting to go inside, not wanting to leave, etc etc. To me it’s all VERY normal stuff. But we will just start a walk and she’ll whine the whole time about not wan”

“Hi everyone, looking for some insight or advice from parents who have been through something similar. My son is 2 years and 9 months old. He currently has a significant speech delay (only says "mommy," "daddy," and a couple of other words). We are already in the middle of having him formally evaluated by an assessor , but I’m looking for daily survival tips in the meantime. Recently, he has developed a massive obsession with random household items. He is fascinated by spice b”

“My neighbors have a 2.5 year old that never stops screaming/screeching. It’s so loud that it can be heard when i am on zoom calls, even with a white noise machine. When the child is home it’s nonstop. There’s so many instances too where the child is screaming and they put it on the balcony with a toy (and it keeps screaming). When the child is inside it also frequently bangs on our shared wall. I tried once asking if their kids was okay a few months ago and they started yelling at me in another”

“Our 3 year old has been insane lately. Our 1 year old somehow is fine just doing random crap by herself. but the 3 year old needs constant attention and its getting exhausting. He literally cannot do anything just by himself, needs my partner or I to do everything with him. When we can, its fine. We play uno, candyland, blocks, magnatiles, etc. He seems to play fine when we are there sort of guiding him and we don't mind doing it like 90% of the time. but the 10% of time we need to get somet”

“Hey parents, I am just curious to know what would you do if you are in a middle of something (a chore, something which you need to get done in that moment) and your baby /toddler starts crying and wants your complete attention (wants to be held or wants to play). What would you do? Do you let them cry and quickly finish the chore or just leave everything and give them your attention? submitted by /u/mjisoming [link] [comments]”

“Bear with me, this might be long. My son will be 3 in just a couple weeks. He is awful. He hates to hear the word no. He will spit at you, hit you, pull your hair. He won’t stay in time out. He’s my 4th kid - first boy. And I feel so out of my element. With my girls, of course they threw tantrums but his seem…bigger? My girls would stay in time out, of course they weren’t perfect toddlers but I almost always could calm them down with a hug and I knew their triggers. Just to give an example: one”

“My 18 month old little boy use to be a sweet angel. He wouldn‘t scream or cry , especially not in public. He wouldn’t have an issue getting changed or bathed or going to bed. He always had a smile on his face. Ever since he turned 16 months old he’s changed a lot. He’s got a horrible attitude. You cannot even wipes his face or feed him without his screaming in frustration or turning his head making an angry growl. All day he throws stuff at me , grabs hard and pulls my hair , hits me , grabs hea”

Edit: Thank yall so much!! This helped me out a lot and I feel better He does not listen to anything I tell him to do no matter what approach I take.…

“For context, my son is 25 months old, but he was born three months early, so his adjusted age is 22 months. I'd say he's somewhere in the middle developmentally. Lately he gets SO upset when he has to sit at the table for meals. He usually acts like he wants to eat. He'll walk over to his highchair and reach up as if he wants to sit there. But when you put him in, he'll start screaming/crying, saying "no", shaking his head, just generally freaking out. We tell him he do”

“I need some support right now. My youngest is 4, and she’s historically had some pretty bad tantrums in public when she’s at her limit, either overtired or too hot etc. Today we were in a really public place walking around, and I could start seeing her show signs that she was over it. I didn’t want my oldest to have to turn back so I told my wife to go with her and I would take my youngest back to the hotel. For about the next hour, she fought me tooth and nail, trying to lay down in the public”

“Developmentally, he appears to be doing very well - hitting all his milestones, many words, not quite stitching them together. He seems to be a very happy little guy 85% of the time, except for recently. Whenever he gets frustrated or is told “No,” he has these EPIC meltdowns. He cries, screams, writhes like he’s being exorcised, and even hits his head hard on hard surfaces. I try to hold him, talk to him softly, rub his hair, and try to get him to calm down and regulate, but he screams and writ”

“I apologize in advance for the long post! My daughter is 2.5 years old, and I’m really struggling with her behavior lately. She started school around age 2, and it feels like things have gotten progressively harder. She also recently became a big sister to her 2-month-old brother, so I’m wondering if that could be contributing to some of this. Every day feels like a battle. She constantly cries and screams when she wants something instead of simply asking for it. Mealtimes have become especially”

“I apologize in advance for my long post! My daughter is 2.5 years old, and I’m really struggling with her behavior lately. She started school around age 2, and it feels like things have gotten progressively harder. She also recently became a big sister to her 2-month-old brother, so I’m wondering if that could be contributing to some of this. Every day feels like a battle. She constantly cries and screams when she wants something instead of simply asking for it. Mealtimes have become especially”

“My son just turned a year old. He is either the happiest little guy or the angriest. There is no in between. I don’t know why he gets so angry and i honestly don’t know if that’s normal or not. He gets angry if we stop him from climbing the stairs, take something he shouldn’t have, make food but don’t feed him fast enough. Average toddler stuff to get upset about. But his reaction is extreme. He screams bloody murder and he will slap or bite me. Only me. He doesn’t bite or slap his dad. Why is t”

“Hi parents! My baby is 7 months old and has always been such a calm, easygoing baby. Of course we’ve had our moments, but overall she’s been pretty chill. For the past 4 days though, she suddenly seems SO much more aware and has started getting upset when she doesn’t get what she wants. For example, I was eating a biscuit and gave her one of her baby rice cakes, and she started crying and getting angry because she wanted mine! She’s never done this before, and while it’s kind of funny seeing her”

“I have a 3 year old that recently seems to have intense tantrum. She would scream, cry, shout and sometimes hit. These tantrum can last anywhere between 20-45 minutes. Its always so intense and it took so much out of me to try and calm her down. Im trying to find patterns for her trigger but sometimes its saying the wrong thing upsets her. On a bad week this can happen multiple times a day or a couple of nights in a row (lasting at least half an hour). Is this normal? Anyone elses kids are this”

“Hes usually great until about 4-5pm and has been crying too much after that. Not entirely sure what the issue is. One thing we noticed is he wants to constantly chew on things. He is distracted when I take him on a walk, but when home its hard to keep him entertained enough to forget about pain. He has no teeth yet so Im guessing maybe they are coming in and bothering him(?). But its been going on for a week and no teeth in sight. Am I missing something here? What to do to help the poor guy? Tha”

“TL;DR: my toddler is nearly weaned but we cut out morning feeds and he's so angry at me all morning and it's just really mentally and emotionally hard on me and I'm worried I'm ruining our relationship :/. The longer version with more context: I'm pregnant, about 8 weeks now, and my OB recommended I wean at this point. We've been on a long slow weaning timeline anyway, in that we night weaned about eight months ago, then weaned from nursing during the day, and left just b”

“My toddler of 3,5 years old is going through another phase of intense tantrums. She is strong-willed and has been like this from a very young age. She can completely lose control over her emotions when things are not going like she has in mind. But she is also smart enough to know how to get what she wants. I find it extremely difficult to know when she is just sort of acting to get her way and when she is truly upset. I don’t want to say she manipulates because I know it’s not exactly like that”

“My daughter is 3.5 and is generally pretty reasonable given her age. Her tantrums are minimal and she usually can move through quickly with some one time/cuddles/deep breaths/discussion. However if she has done something wrong she completely loses it and struggles to move forward. Today we played a game and she hit my husband with a toy pretty hard during it. I think she got carried away and didn’t realise the toy was hard. But when my husband told her sternly (not yelling or overly intense in m”

“My 22-month old son acts like I’m torturing him whenever I wash his hair. I’m talking screaming and crying like he’s in actual pain, and then taking a good 10 minutes to fully calm down afterward. He gets a bath every night before bed and LOVES bath time, but we only wash his hair once or twice a week and he freaks out every single time. Anyone else deal with this? Any advice or tips? Otherwise he doesn’t have any sensory issues or over the top reactions. submitted by /u/Slight-Poten”

“I have a very intense 3 year old. I have received comments about how high energy and attention driven she is from a few different people. We have play dates with toddlers around her age and she always seems to be the most intense one there. I’ve gotten comments about “boundaries” and “consequences”, but honestly, I’ve given it my all and she is just extremely stubborn. A few things: She has very intense reactions to ordinary limits. If I ask her to throw her trash away or wash her hands, she wil”

“Hi. I’m desperate for help. I’m currently shaking and my mommy heart feels broken. I am struggling with my son. He is 3.5 years old. We moved in with my boyfriend about a year ago. My boyfriend and I were long distance but constantly saw each other and my son knew him. He’s practically been around to raise my son since he was a few months old. My son has been in daycare since he was six months old. He had chronic ear infections and became delayed with his speech. He got ear tubes, did speech the”

“Hello, My partner is struggling to get used being around my 4 years old child and he feels overwhelmed. He doesn’t understand why she gets tantrums and why she does naughty behaviours ( leaving the fridge open, standing up on the dining table..) and when she doesn’t get what she wants she gets quite mean by telling me I dont like you mummy or that she doesnt like him etc.. He tries his best to be nice to her and making sure she has everything that she needs but she still gets tantrums and he fee”

“Looking for studies on effective discipline for toddlers as well as autistic children. I'm very much of the mind set of treating autistic children the same way, just with accommodations to help but I'm curious if standard discipline (talking to and time outs) will be understood over time. I know it takes time for lessons to set in but we're trying to establish respecting others property (don't take toys that aren't yours and don't break stuff in the house). Thank yall in”

“Hi, so I have 3 year old daughter that is constantly having tantrums about everything - calling it "spiritied/intensive child" feels like a massive understatement. This has been escalating over the last six months, and with a newborn now at home, it has become a daily nightmare. To be clear: this was happening way before the baby arrived, so it's not being jealous. But this time the frequency has increased like 10 times about everything everywhere. We are talking 30 to 40-minute ep”

“Idk if it’s a phase, but she wasn’t like this a few months ago. She hurls cups and utensils while laughing. (We don’t entertain it. We calmly say “stop. Don’t do that” and move on), she will throw a fit if you take something from her or she wants what you’re holding. While being changed, she’d throw a flurry of kicks into your chest. The only things she hasn’t gotten to do is hit and bite. Idk… I get a bit worried how she’ll fare in daycare. There’s a policy of two physical incidents and your as”