Aggressive Twin

This is my first time posting on here, I recently became a member. I would love some advice. I have 16 month old identical twin girls and of course they are totally opposite in personality. My oldest (by 2 min) is very headstrong and aggressive. If she sees her sister playing with a toy she immediately wants it and takes it from her. She has started hitting and pushing her sometimes. She doesn't hurt her sister but I don't know of a good way to discipline her since she is still pretty young..."no" doesn't help and I remove her from the situation and put her in a time out on my lap for a couple of minutes and she will be fine for awhile but then it will happen again. Then for the first time today she was hitting a little girl at daycare. I would love to hear from anyone that has (or is) going through the same thing and welcome suggestions.

 

Hello and welcome to TS!

My girls are only 11months but we have the same thing although it's the younger one who is the Alpha. She has done this starting at about 7months when she started to crawl. I just redirect, redirect and more redirect. She has got better as in that there are now days which she doesn't act this way but on the days when the redirect doesn't work, I get the playpen out and separate them.

I also make an effort to play with them together and even though they are very young, I 'show' them how to take turns for eg. Liara is playing with that, you can play with this until it's your turn. Look I know that they are much too young to understand but I also think that just by the repetition in action, they will slowly catch on. I can only hope!

 

About 1/2way through the 2nd year I started with a timer. I'd set a timer and then it was the other kid's turn. They got to the point where they'd ask me to set a timer for them.

 

Oh most definitely we have an Alpha male. And it doesn't matter if he has the exact same thing as his brother (we buy 2 of everything) he still wants his brother's toy. We just have to enforce time out and discipline otherwise. I was terrified when they went to daycare at 17 months of what would happen but apparently he doesn't take toys in daycare (thank goodness).

 

It is just a normal problem for twins. Pretty soon the victim twin will find the way to survive or to fight back.

I remember those days, I constantly said "no, it's back, hitting biting pulling hair are just bad and unacceptable." also redirect before bad things happened, u dont say many NOs. instead of NO, you tell them what they shoud do. Teach them to take turns and share. Usually I let the aggressive twin play first then 1-2 mins up, he had to give the toy to his sis. An they took turns like that. It was very ugly though. But I sticked with the rules.

When you tell them what they do bad, give them strong face impressions as well. They might not understand u 100%. But will get the idea from your face impressions.

Also, u can teach them to negotiate. Michelle came up with the idea. She is always the weak and lighter twin. So her bro bit/hit/pulled hair and took away her toys a lot. She couldn't fight back. Hes bigger and stronger. So when her bro took her toys, she came back to him with 2-3 toys and let him pick. As soon as he dropped the toy, she took it an ran for her life lol. Also, she runs better and faster than Rr bro. And that's how she survived. They have to learn how to survive eventually. It's a long tiring process. But it will get better. U just have to stick with your rules. Keep repeat them over and over again. U can start introduce time out now. They will get the idea. When I first applied time out, I kept talking explaining why they were times out and how bad they were over and over again. Now at 2.5 yrs old, they hate hate time out. The first time out is 5 mins. And it will increase 2 mins for the next one and go on like that. They hate it so much. And I never let them off the hook for once. Things got better after that.

The way I make them do time out is stand up, face the wall and listen to what mommy has to say. The worst time out is 30 mins in their bedroom. They will do everything to avoid it. My husband always says that I am too strict. But that's the one way to keep them under control. Now at 2.5 yrs old, we eliminated 80% of all the fighting, biting, hitting,... They are actually getting a long so well. They still do fight sometimes. But I always see them chit chat, play together. Gl!