Tantruming 8.5-month-old - Page 2

[justKate]

Originally Posted by ErynneM

I know it's normal... I just worry if it's good, you know? A lot of 'normal' behaviors aren't ones I particularly want replicated, if that makes sense?

Know what ya mean. DD (10 mos.) does the screaming throwing herself around fit when 1) I take something dangerous away from her; 2) she sits in a highchair for more than 3 minutes; 3) it's time to go to sleep; and most of all 4) when it's time for diaper changes and 5) when her nose is wiped!

I just ignore it at diaper time--we make it quick. Even though she gets so worked up sometimes that I'm afraid she's going to give herself an itty bitty baby heart attack. But diapers must be changed and babies must not play with the oven door. So to make myself feel better, I narrate her feelings in a silly voice: "OOOOH NOOOO! Don't take my boogers mama! DO NOT wipe my baby nose! I spent all day accumulating those boogers to decorate my face and now YOU'RE TAKING THEM! Stop!"

And sometimes it makes her laugh. I try.

[mojobot2000]

Ask permission?

My nearly 11 month old daughter sometimes gets extremely upset about things like diaper changes, nose-wiping, and naps...I've found that it literally works MIRACLES to slow down and ask her permission when I want to do something to her. I'll carry her over to the changing table and say, "May I lay you down on the table now and check your diaper?" Or show her the tissue and say, "I notice you have some boogers on your lip, would you mind if I wiped them off?" 95% of the time she lets me do it without protest. The other 5%, I respect her no and try again in 15 minutes or so.
Obviously, she can't understand most of what I'm saying, but she gets the key words, gestures, and most importantly--she gets that I'm ASKING her. Sometimes I DO have to do things that make her upset (in which case I try to be sympathetic but firm: "Yeah, I know you don't want me to do this. It makes you MAD! Go ahead and tell me how mad you are. I'm listening. It'll be over soon."), but I've found that calmly explaining what I want to do, involving her in it, and asking for permission, greatly reduces the amount of time she spends yelling at me.

My daughter also likes to put dead leaves in her mouth! I let her play with them until she puts them in her mouth, and then I take them away but hold them in front of her and say something like, "Isn't that interesting, it's a leaf! It fell from a tree. You can play with it, but you can't eat it, it's YUCKY," and I put it on the ground where she can choose to pick it up again or not. I do this over and over and over and over and over and over again. Eventually, she usually loses interest in the leaves and will stop putting them in her mouth...if it escalates too much and it's driving me nuts, I'll just get her away from the leaves.

[YasaiMuraLife]

"And I have five dogs to feed, so they all get fed at the same time twice daily (i do not free feed - as a retired dog trainer, i cannot say how bad free feeding is for a dog). I might try delaying them until his nap, but that's an awful long wait for small dogs. I suppose I might also just work on "no" with him a bit more. He hesitates when I say it. Perhaps if I give him a toy after hesitation to distract him?"


I had to laugh when reading this part ... it sounded like clicker training might be in order!

Your son has his own personality and is oh-so-clearly expressing it. As other posters have said, this is so normal. Some kids fuss a little and some fuss a whole lot over everything.

What else to do to help prevent the fussing or at least minimize it? Maybe singing to grab his attention. Maybe the same song for different things - like meal time or diaper changes. Toys are great distractions (though I don't think that these need to be official toys, but really anything that the child is interested in playing with.) Go through your bathroom to see what might be interesting during diaper changes - in our house, it is a toothbrush (unused), a nearly empty aspirin bottle with child proof lid, the bag that usually holds the camara, etc. It probably would be good to give your son something in a white dish while the dogs are being fed. Hey, maybe the dogs could be trained to do something special during diaper changes! Like lie on their backs and stay still. (I'm actually not joking! If I could convince our cat to do this, diaper time would be really easy around here.)

[justKate]

What else to do to help prevent the fussing or at least minimize it? Maybe singing to grab his attention. Maybe the same song for different things - like meal time or diaper changes. Toys are great distractions (though I don't think that these need to be official toys, but really anything that the child is interested in playing with.) Go through your bathroom to see what might be interesting during diaper changes - in our house, it is a toothbrush (unused), a nearly empty aspirin bottle with child proof lid, the bag that usually holds the camara, etc. It probably would be good to give your son something in a white dish while the dogs are being fed. Hey, maybe the dogs could be trained to do something special during diaper changes! Like lie on their backs and stay still. (I'm actually not joking! If I could convince our cat to do this, diaper time would be really easy around here.)

pak

Things that help us w/diapers right now are singing an incredibly silly song at the top of my lungs: WHHOOOOOO LIVES IN A PINEAPPLE UDER THE SEA?! AUBREY RUTH WET PANITIES!

showing her how to knock on the wall behind the changing table or scrath at it; letting her sit/stand through as much of it as possible; playibng peekabo with the pants i took off of her or the clean diaper.

just some thoughts.

[mort20]

On your first story, does it usually happen? Because when my son was that young he also do that but not as usual. When kids start to have fun with something, even if it is wrong (which they do not know), it will be hard for parents to stop them. The best thing that you can do is to keep them away from things he/she is not advised to play with.

[ErynneM]

Originally Posted by PikkuMyy

I
I do a lot of interactive play with her but even still, I can't imagine doing it with only a few household objects. We've got a nice set of animals, wooden blocks, baby books, shape sorter, cups that fit into each other, that sort of thing. You can have a nice set of toys without having the awful ones that light up and make noises.

We do a combination of Montessori and Waldorf here, so he does have some toys... but certainly not a bin full. For one thing, we'd have nowhere to store a bin, and for another, we aren't keen on the idea of dozens of different items.

The toys he does have, we switch out periodically so he doesn't play with the same thing over and over for days at a time.

And we have baby books, some plastic toys, some wooden blocks, and I'm currently making him a Waldorf soft-body doll. Trust me, he's not in any way suffering from lack of toys. We just also use a lot of household items and things that would otherwise be 'off-limits' to a baby in a normal house.

- E

[ErynneM]

Originally Posted by justKate

And sometimes it makes her laugh. I try.

Made ME laugh anyway! And I completely understand... babies (especially once they start motoring around) don't like their independence challenged, and being held to have your nose wiped or your diaper changed is a BIG challenge! :P We try to make it quick and try to make him relax, but he just isn't having any of it right now.

- E

[ErynneM]

Originally Posted by mojobot2000

My nearly 11 month old daughter sometimes gets extremely upset about things like diaper changes, nose-wiping, and naps...I've found that it literally works MIRACLES to slow down and ask her permission when I want to do something to her. I'll carry her over to the changing table and say, "May I lay you down on the table now and check your diaper?" Or show her the tissue and say, "I notice you have some boogers on your lip, would you mind if I wiped them off?" 95% of the time she lets me do it without protest. The other 5%, I respect her no and try again in 15 minutes or so.

He's starting to pick up words now. He understands "Change your diaper" and "Take a bath" and definitely knows "Do you want to nurse?" We're working on solidifying "Mommy," "Daddy," and "Grandma." I'm very much looking forward to him having a better understanding of English so I CAN ask rather than forcing it on him. Thank you for your post - it's what we would like to do with him eventually. It's encouraging to know it can work as young as 11mos.

- E

[ErynneM]

Originally Posted by YasaiMuraLife

"And I have five dogs to feed, so they all get fed at the same time twice daily (i do not free feed - as a retired dog trainer, i cannot say how bad free feeding is for a dog). I might try delaying them until his nap, but that's an awful long wait for small dogs. I suppose I might also just work on "no" with him a bit more. He hesitates when I say it. Perhaps if I give him a toy after hesitation to distract him?"


I had to laugh when reading this part ... it sounded like clicker training might be in order!

We've done clicker training. Like I said: retired dog trainer, now a SAHM. And if you mean for Jacob... the only thing he likes to eat is breastmilk (solids aren't his big thing) and he already gets as much nursing as he wants. *L* I don't see how I could clicker train him when the only 'treat' he wants is the thing he gets all day long!

- E

[pixiepunk]

sounds like you've got a lot of great advice already. i'd just add that, for me, switching to cloth trainers with a mobile baby made life soooo much easier. they make them with snaps on the sides so you can get them off like a diaper if there's a poo. you can also sometimes use fitteds or AIO's that have snap-closures like a trainer by snapping them more loosely so they can be pulled up and down. but changing mobile LO's while they remained standing up always made them much happier in my house, so i thought i'd throw that out there.

[VisionaryMom]

Originally Posted by ErynneM

Oh, I know there's no way to completely avoid them... but I'd like to minimize them as much as possible. And I always want to know I have the option of just leaving when the baby is having a meltdown. I don't want to be the mom who ignores her kid completely in a public forum while the poor thing shrieks and kicks and freaks out. That's definitely not my style.

I don't want to sound discouraging, but I also don't want you to have expectations that may not be met. We're AP, but my oldest child has been very difficult to handle. He's had meltdowns in public many, many times, despite our best efforts. And there were days when I had to get something done, and he just had to scream. That's rare, but it's happened.

There have been a number of days I've been in tears because of his behavior and because we didn't know what we'd done wrong. DD, who has been parented the same way, is completely different. I don't recall her ever having a public tantrum; she's rarely had them at home. She's not a complainer, and she's pretty flexible all around.

It's not the parenting that makes them who they are. Our job is to help them navigate the world in the healthiest way possible. I'm telling you this not because I think you have a particularly high-needs child (it doesn't sound like it), but I don't want other parents to go through the anguish we have when we feel our best efforts have failed. I've also been at the receiving end of some nasty looks from other parents (esp. other AP parents) who believe we must be doing something wrong, or our child wouldn't behave this way. It's frustrating and hurtful (and I admit, slightly rewarding when their second children are that way!).

[Anna's Lovey]

My lo started with the intense, loud screaming at about 5.5 months, so I know how unsettling it can be. This lasted until about the time she started walking and now she's the calmest, most easy-to-deal with kid I know. I don't have any advice except to try to not let it bother you. After a few months of intense outbursts I started to realize that she wasn't in pain, didn't have a behavior problem, and I wasn't a bad mommy, which really helped.
Also: I read dr. sears, "The Fussy Baby Book", which I highly recommend.
Also: I realized (way to late)that she was allergic to the cow's milk she was getting through nursing, which may have caused her to be on edge.
I think that it's normal to feel upset by this kind of behavior, especially when it first starts, but I think it's important to remember that some babies express their emotions much more loudly than others.
Good Luck!