Is it just me or is having two 18 mos olds HARD?

I want to start this off by saying I love my children bc sometimes in the heat of a moment I forget how awesome this journey of parenthood has been but holy crap there are days where I find things are getting harder! DS is getting frustrated really easily about everything which leads to whining and whining and tears. DD is teething and constipated and the victim of her brother who steals everything!!! This of course leads to more tears!

Do you ever feel as though your fuse has been lit? Some days my head really hurts from all the whining and I just want a day of quiet in my house! The irony is that I miss my kids when I'm away!!

Do you have any advice for dealing with a kid who is frustrated easily and used to immediate gratification? I want to help DS work through his feelings rather than get and at him, which is useless for the both of us.

 

My phone auto-corrected.. It should read "mad at him"

 

I was not a fan of 18-24 months. :blush: I had one DD that was struggling so much with expressive speech that she would tantrum several times a day because she couldn't communicate her needs with us. It was Aw.Ful.!! So yes, I know exactly what you are talking about.

Do you think he might be in the same boat? Not able to express his needs? He might know what he wants, but cannot get it across to you?

I guess my only advice is patience. I'm sure it's thin most days but keeping your cool as much as possible will only help matters. :hug: :hug: :hug: Know you are not alone!!

 

I have just one 18 month old right now and am wondering how I managed with 2 of them! I think the difference this time is having 2 others who need attention, but mostly the personality of #3 is so much different. She goes nonstop! It is hard for them because they can communicate but not well enough so they get frustrated and scream and whine, etc., and in turn we get frustrated. You will get through it. I found that 18-24 months was the most challenging. The 2's weren't that terrible and 3's so far isn't bad. With the 18-24 month crowd there is more chasing after them and telling them not to do things etc.

 

:hug: That was definitely a tough time here too! I agree, for my girls it seemed to be a language frustration - they knew what they wanted but weren't able to tell us. I was a big fan of the parental time out at that age. I would put the girls somewhere safe & go somewhere else in the house (even if it was just to the bathroom by myself :laughing for 5 minutes, to breathe & re-group. Often, by the time DH got home I was primed & ready to race out the door or downstairs for a half hour because I just couldn't take one.more.minute. Hang in there!

 

I found 15-18 months one of the hardest stages! :faint: Sure, I was sleeping more, but there were stressing me out a lot more too!

Hang in there! :hug: It DOES get better as they get older!

 

I am finding this age really hard as well....like a pp, I think the lack of communication is a big part of it....my boys can answer "yes" and "no" now, which really helps, but I still have to ask the right questions to figure out what they want. And lately they have been SO bad about taking things from each other, which leads to lots of screaming, pushing, etc. They don't seem to understand much discipline yet either. I recently gave them their first time out (1 minute in the crib) because they kept throwing their toy trucks at my head (and I could tell from the look on their face and the way they did it that they understood my warnings). That did seem to help some - they didn't throw any at me today, but we will see about tomorrow! :laughing: Personally, I don''t think most kids this age are mature enough yet to really work through their feelings - I have tried things like "don't cry and tell mommy what you want" or "no whining" and that just upsets them more, so at least for my boys, I don't think they are ready to work through emotions just yet.

I know you also posted about your kids waking early, and I have to say, on the days that my boys wake earlier than 7am, they are absolutely AWFUL - whiny, fighting, etc. WAY more than when they get a good night's rest. Like someone else said, we do CIO for morning wakings before 7am. I rarely get them before that unless they are crying like they are hurt or in pain (which is only on occasion). Unfortunately, that doesn't always help and sometimes they are still cranky if they woke up too early, and I haven't found any rhyme or reason for the days they wake early or not.

Hang in there - we will make it!! :grouphug:

 

Like a PP said their ability to communicate, or lack there of, at this age makes a HUGE difference in how difficult it is. Noah sounds a lot like how Dannik was...I found 18-24 months with him unbelievably difficult (being preggers with his sisters didn't help either!). He would get frustrated so easily which would lead to major meltdowns. As soon as he turned 2 it was like a switch flipped and he was this amazing little person (and then he turned 3...but that's another story ). I know 2 sounds like it is soooo far away at this point but that's my new mantra with Amélie and Audrée...I KNOW it will get so much better once we get to January but it's going to be a long road getting there .

My only advise is like a PP said...parental time-outs. I tried putting Dannik in time out when he was this age but it made things worse. It was a power struggle that no one won so this time around I'm not even attempting them with the girls until they are 2. Trying to help him find words will help too. I tried to teach Dannik "help" early on so even if he couldn't explain what it was he needed/wanted at least he could let us know he was struggling.

This stage is HARD!!!!

 

I found 15-19 months to be extremely hard and a big part of it was as Rachel said up thread, language frustration. My kids short fuse was due to the fact that they could not express themselves the way that they wanted to. Plus, they were getting more independent and there is only so much you can do at that age. I also agree with the poster who suggested parental time outs, definitely take them!
Sometimes, I would put my two back in their cribs and just tell them "Mommy needs to calm down right now."
I found that once my kids could communicate better, things got so much better around here. Hang in there :hug:

 

Thank you ladies!!! So glad to hear that I am not alone. It is TOTALLY an expressive issue and a little bit of acting out thrown into the mix. I will tell Noah "NO" and he looks in my face and I am pretty sure he understands but does it anyways. I want to scream when he spits his milk ALL over the floor and himself EVERYDAY... grrrr. Parental time-outs sound awesome ))) My hubby onced asked me if there were baby hotels... you drop them off for the weekend for a little respite for parents... LOL... I laughed so hard but deep down was kind of like, "why don't they have something like this??" but then i'd probably worry about them the whole time

My other big news is the Noah went his first poo on the potty today. Not by his own accord but when I saw his poo-poo face, I put him on there and he went. So exciting

Anyways, thanks again and have an awesome day! Keep strong mammas, we can do this

 

It does get better! I found that in the last few months my kids had a language explosion which has made it much easier to meet their needs without screaming, whining and acting out. I did start using time outs at this age and we did not use their cribs because 1) they have toys in there and 2) by the time we got up there they had forgotten what they did wrong. We started with just holding them in our laps and then transitioned to standing in the corner. We can now say "get in the corner" and they go until we tell them to come out. When they come out I make sure to tell them I love them but we don't hit/bite/throw etc.

My DS is one of those who gets frustrated easily. There are some times where I think he just gets himself too worked up and doesn't know how to calm down and in those cases I just hold him till he starts to calm down and then redirect him into another activity. I encourage him to point or show me what is upsetting him if i'm not sure what it is.

Another thing I noticed around this age was that mine actually acted better when I got them out and about. I think some of their whininess was boredom and if we broke Rhe monotony by doing something different it helped. Good luck!

 

Another thing I will add is if one of mine does something like milk spitting or food throwing I take the cup/plate away. If they are throwing a fit at the table, I will turn their chair around and tell them they can rejoin the table when they calm down.

 

It was such a hard age for Spencer. I don't remember my others being so ornery at that age. But Spencer had meltdowns all the time. He'd get so frustrated and difficult. Oh the whining and shrieking and hitting and biting. He was so much harder than any of my other kids had been. And then he started to talk and it was like a switch flipped. He's the sweetest, most cuddly and demonstrative child. He still has his moments, as all kids do. But overall he's like a different child. I think he was just so frustrated that we couldn't understand him, that it affected everything he did.

 

Yes! The other night we had the WORST night we've had since the twins were infants. The crying, the jealously, the attention seeking....horrible. My twins say a lot of single words, but not enough for us to really understand their needs, which I think is the root of most of our frustrations. We also deal with A LOT of fussy behavior, which is really annoying. Teething? Who knows - I just want it to stop!

 

Add me to the list. There has been a noticeable change at our house in the last couple of weeks. My boys just turned 21 months actual/18 months adjusted. I swear, it's like a switch is flipped at 18 months!!! There is A LOT of whining and fussing and crying no matter what we do, how much they've slept, etc... I feel like our house is Fort Knox because we've removed so much furniture, babyproofed, tied things down... and they still find things to get in to. Telling them 'no' is not effective yet, in fact, it encourages them. The climbing is crazy and it gets scary because they have no fear and as much as we try to make things safe for them, they still fall off the couch and toy box because they like to dance and sit on the edges. They interact more now which is fun to watch, but that also means they fight over EVERYTHING, bite, hit, pull hair, etc... I really do feel like a referee most of the day. I'm lucky if I get to sit on the sofa for 5 minutes in the morning before I have to start telling them to stop climbing, emptying the dishwasher, emptying all of the kitchen drawers,... My one DS is very dominant and will push his brother out of his way very often. Well, I've noticed in the last few days that my other DS's new response is to bite in retaliation. Their language is amazing for their adjusted age, but obviously they cannot yet communicate effectively enough, so they act out behaviorally.
So, yes, while this is a fun age in many ways, it is extremely challenging as a parent of multiples and add pregnancy to the mix and most evenings by 7pm I am absolutely shot!!!!!!!!! I REALLY look forward to the day when they listen to 'no', at least somewhat better, and realize what things in the house are off limits.