When does parenting start?

[kriket]

DS is 16m and he has started 'playing' me. DH and I parent pretty much exactly the same it seems, however, DS acts up with me waaay more. Today for example. I was sitting on the couch popping seams on a diaper to replace elastic. DS wanted my scissors so I leaned back so he couldn't get them and scooted another diaper down my leg to try and get this attention so he would want to play with the "new" diaper and not the scissors. No joy. He kept after the scissors, so I hid them behind my back and put the diaper on his head like a hat (his fave thing) it worked until I took the scissors back out. When I tried putting the dipe back on his head he FREAKED! Full on fall to the floor purple faced screaming. I tried to ignore it, but he was really working himself up and eventually I picked him up. It's like the scream morphed from a tantrum, to forgetting he was tantruming and was genuinely upset.


20 MINS LATER -
DH was reading a book that DS wanted and DH says "look, is that your ball?" and he goes off and plays with his ball toy for like 10 mins!! WTH!?

this happens every.single.time

I don't know what I am doing wrong. Is it just because I'm mom? The one with the forever comforting milkies?

[ThankfulMama]

[ssh]

He's not "playing" you, he's just a normal curious baby. Wanting to see, touch and even taste everything in sight is how babies and toddlers learn about the world. The easiest way to deal with it is to keep anything dangerous up and out of sight. The strong need to explore the world and insatiable curiosity are two traits that make humans so different from the rest of the animals. So they are good traits just annoying until your LO develops an understanding of danger and some impulse control at about 3.

Also children feel most comfortable and safest with their primary caregiver, so that's the person who usually gets the most challenging behavior.

[crunchy_mommy]

I agree with the PP. I think distraction & redirection work really well at this age but there will inevitably be times when nothing works & they just melt down. That's usually when I pull out my 'bag of tricks' which consists of things like letting him play a game on the laptop (which is normally off-limits) or taking him outside or telling him puppy stories (two of his favorite things in the world) -- think of a few things that your DS loves or seldom is allowed to do, and use those things right before he hits the complete & total meltdown stage. Vary it a bit so he doesn't eventually associate meltdown with a certain 'treat'... And of course prevention -- try to avoid having dangerous/off-limits items constantly in his site. No one wants to see a cookie over & over & continually be told you can't eat it. I also try to involve DS as much as possible even when I really don't want to. So I let him play with the computer parts or something breakable or marginally (but obviously not very!) dangerous with super close supervision, so he doesn't feel like everything is 'forbidden' and only mommy gets to play with the cool toys!

[RoViMama]

Yes, they treat the mama and daddy differently, just as we sometimes treat them differently. In this case, I think I would have a) stopped working while he was awake, b) encouraged DH to come get him so you could finish up, and/or c) said, "You want mama's scissors. These are sharp. For mama only. You can have..." Look into getting him some very dull kid scissors and he can "fix" diaps with you. Then you can say, "These are mama's, here are yours."

It's important to remember that they understand our words sooo much even if they are not saying much. One book I love is the Happiest Toddler on the block. Love speaking cave man!!!