Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Throwing a Fit

Jude is feeling better now, over the flu and onto the next awful thing, throwing fits.  It has been coming for a while I think but now that he is feeling better, all bets are off.  My once happy, smiling baby has turned into a tyrant.  If he doesn’t get what he wants, say the remote controls, a sip of whatever mama is drinking, etc or even for no reason at all he throws himself into hysterics.  We’re talking full force screaming, thrashing, snotting, crazy freak out.  If you try to hold him he straightens his body out and thrashes and if you put him on the ground he flips onto his stomach and lays on the floor screaming and kicking.  It  is awful.  So awful that I’m half convinced that maybe he has an ear infection, but it just seems like he is so angry, not hurting.

After looking around on the Internet it looks like this is possibly normal behavior for a 12-18 month old?  Something to do with feeling strong emotions for the first time and getting overwhelmed.  At this point it seems best to just try to sit by him and be there for him when he is in the middle of these tantrums, but I am SO open to advise.  Anyone else go through this with their little ones?
-Liz

10 comments:

  1. Ha! I always knew I had an early bloomer! EJ has *just* started doing this, too. If we're late to bring her food, or leave the room when she wants to play or whatever it is that minute, she starts yelling and thrashing. So far I'm still so stunned when it happens that I just tell her I don't like when she does that and wait her out, but apparently our daycare lady teases her about it a little (not mean, just 'whoa! you're so angry!'). No advice, but at least we're not alone!

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  2. When The Bean start to throw a fit we usually try to distract him, if that doesn't work, we usually lie him down on the ground and walk away. Fortunately he doesn't do it often. (*Knock wood*)

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  3. When we reported this type of behavior to my daughter's developmental ped (she's a preemie), it was marked down as "developmentally advanced social behavior." So there's that. And sorry to say, in my experience, it only gets worse.

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  4. Totally normal and should only last a few years, if you are lucky ;) Mine get so angry they puke, ahh, motherhood!

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    1. Oooooh, thanks for telling this!! I really thought that Jakob is the only kid who does this. If he gets worked up too much he starts puking too. *sigh*

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  5. Oh, welcome to the club. Jakob is now 19 months old and we have been dealing with these outburst for about 6 to 7 months now. *sigh* They decrease but are still awful.

    Our way to deal with him is...
    1. try to talk to him
    2. let him have his time and work things out on his own (meaning, let him scream)
    3. when he starts to calm down we explain in a quiet way why he could not have this or do this ...which leads to another outburst or he accepts
    4. if he has another outburst we put him in his crib until he is quiet and not talk about it anymore

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  6. I do the same as Allison. Fits are pretty much not tolerated in our house...probably because we were so scared of the terrible 2's. The first thing we'd do is distract and if he doesn't want a part of whatever it is, then you just keep doing it. For example...if you offer to read him a book and he ignores or would rather throw the fit...then you sit down and read the book for yourself, or play with a ball or car, whatever. If he is still throwing a fit then you walk away and let him calm himself down...."when you're calm, we can talk again" or "when your calm, mommy will come back."

    I don't know if you guys are signing, but it also helps them communicate. You def need to learn the sign for "stop", "no" so that you can say it and sign it at the same time. Hope everything everyone has told you helps. It will get better. Now ours doesn't throw fits, he's just a little smart ass just like us!

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  7. Jude is just about 6 weeks older than my kids and I'm now scared for what lies ahead! Also, I completely agree with Brooke about baby sign language. I work as a sign language interpreter so of course I'm a big advocate of signing. So many of my friends (interpreters and non-interpreters) say it really does help to reduce tantrums. Good luck.

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  8. You're not alone. My sweet 15 month old son has perfected his back arch lately. If he doesn't get his way he will let you know how truly pissed he is. Usually, I just distract him and he moves on but sometimes he just has to work it out on his own.

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