whining about everything (4.5yrold)

[hanbanan]

My 4.5 year old ds has recently revved up his whing to a (ridiculously) high level. He knows how to ask nicely and used to do pretty well at it. It has been a month or so of this very whiny and frustratated behavior. I have recently really started to not respond to his whines and rude demands. I say " i can't understand you. When you use I nice voice I can hear you." and things like that. Then I don't respond ( mostly) until he does use a kind voice. It does seem to work, but it isn;t limiting the frequency of his whininess. I mean, he still very often starts ANY interaction by whining or grumbling....Then we repeat the whole thing, " I can't understand you when you use that voice.....etc" . What else can I do? I can't find a source for this negativity. We are kind to him, firm with him, loving, etc. Is this " normal"? What do you do when your dc is like this? ( or is he the only one out there...?)

[jillmamma]

DD does this sometimes too, and it drives me batty as well! I do the same as you, telling her "Sorry, can't understand you till you ask in a nice voice." I know with her that when she gets like this, it is usually because she is getting really tired and/or hungry. Normally happens during the "witching hour" (between 5ish and 7ish) right before daddy comes home and we have dinner and bed. So getting enough sleep and food helps a lot, and they DO outgrow this phase eventually too! (DS is 6.5 and rarely whines).

[aprons_and_acorns]

My DS went through a whining phase too when he was about that age. It is SO irritating! I'm not sure if this helped him stop the whining or if it was just something he would have given up anyway, but it seemed to help if I whined back to him, not in a mocking way, but really like an echo. It made him laugh and realize what he sounded like. For example:

DS: Mooooooom, I waaaant miiiiiiilk.
Me: Miiiiiiiilk? I don't have any miiiiiiiiilk. I just have milk, water, or juice.
DS: (laughing) milk please

The whining phase lasted about two months and there were times I wanted to wear earplugs. Hang in there, LOL.