Intro

Hello! My boys turned one on Tuesday. I look forward to getting to know all of you pros! I have a feeling you may receive a lot of questions from me as we venture into this knew phase!

My boys have been so sweet!! However, I think one of them has been getting tired of the compliments he has been getting while we are out so lately he has decided to change things up a bit! I now have a screamer! What upsets me most is that I dont want it to bother his brother who is so good natured. He even hit his brother for the first time today. Enough to make him cry. Usually when they would take a toy from each other, the other would move on to something else. I know this is all very normal but I feel like I dont have patience like I thought I would! So, if you have a screamer/hitter, is there anything to do at this point!

 

Hi Nicole,

I can't help with the screaming part. However, I can speak about the sibiling rivalry part. My DS and DD do not always play nicely. They will try to hit each other with a toy or their cup. I don't necessarily think it's about hurting their sibiling. I think they are playing. However, sometimes they do get frustrated and push or try to bite one another. I don't have patience for this. I love to watch them play and laugh together. It makes me sad to see them do unkind things. I don't have any great advice for you. Just wanted to let you know that you're not alone!

 

Welcome! It is hard to believe that they are one! Congrats on that milestone!

The best advice I have is to be consistent and use a lot of redirection. Not much help, but they do get a little more stubborn the older they get!!!

 

Try to ignore the screaming if he's just doing it to make noise. The more reaction he gets from you, the more he will do it.

For toy-stealing and aggression, at 12 months the best response is still to redirect. Our rule is that the thief NEVER gets to keep the toy. (Although we do break this rule, if we're not sure who the thief was, or if the steal-ee doesn't actually seem to mind.) So we always make her give it back. But beyond that, we don't do any kind of time-outs, just try to get her interested in another toy.

Around 18 months, mine finally started to get the concept of taking turns. They still don't get "sharing" AT ALL, but they will take turns as long as there's an adult right there to enforce whose turn it is.

Fighting over toys (and everything else) is very normal -- I hate to say it, but to some degree you will get used to it. From about 14-20 months, I didn't even want them to be in the same room together because it inevitably led to stealing, shoving, etc. It is getting a bit better now. Also, now Amy is verbal -- so instead of just hearing screaming and having to run in there to find out what happened, I hear "NO SARAH!!!" and I know there's a shoving match going on.

 

Welcome to the 1-5 Nicole!

 

Welcome Nicole!! Hope the boys had a great birthday.

 

Nicole, I have completely gotten to the point that I can tune Kev out. He has been the screamer for about 4 months now and it gets loader every month. (Lucky ME!)

But seriously, you will get used to it. Oh and he usually gets "serviced" first too. (I wonder why? )