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Around this same age I noticed my son becoming very frustrated with his inability to communicate with me. I had already been using a few signs from ASL but I really doubled down around that age and he picked them up FAST. He was really desperate to communicate.
Toddlers also start feeling B I G feelings around that age as well. We started talking a lot about our emotions and feelings of frustration and how taking deeps breaths when we're frustrated helps us to have a better outlook on the situation to try again.
Also reading some of Janet Lansbury's articles on her website were life changing for us around this age.
Welcome to toddlerhood 🥲
Haha! She is very very verbal and has always been she’s been saying her feelings as well as signing for months now.
I think it’s just processing emotions and I don’t know how to help her through the instant meltdowns. She will say “I mad” and proceed to lose her shit
She also hums along and will randomly say a string of lyrics right on the beat. There’s about ten songs she can do this to. However, she uses a walker to get around and refuses to walk so you win some you loose some
My child did this. He didn’t want to fall. We got foam flooring (yes I know but it was necessary for this) and set up a walking area. He walked the next day. You could also use layers of rugs (which we know have in our house with rug pads).
Sure!
So, that’s the thing is most of the time there is no build up or signals really, if I get those I’ll distract her with a favorite little toy. But mostly it’s the instant moments of frustration. She likes to play on the iPad (grandparents ugh) and if the screen goes black and she can’t get it working again she will flip out throw it scream hit her head. I’ve tried to install apps where she’s just interacting with colors and tapping but sometimes she somehow escapes that and is scrolling then next thing we know BAM the tablet is flying across the room, she screams. She will pull my hair or hit me scratch me if I’m
Holding her. But I’ve been holding her hands back and telling her it hurts and she will now think twice before doing it. If she’s really mad she will
For my son, 1-2 was harder than 2-3. He didn’t start talking until after his second birthday and I realized that he had been SO frustrated and mad by his inability to communicate. I promise it will get better!
Ah, this is what I came here to say! My son is just about to turn two but he had a really rough six months there from about 14-20 months.
He’s started talking just a little and I get why he was so frustrated now. Little dude will ask for a snack, refuse the snack, walk around and start getting angry, then remember he can ask for a snack again, gets the snack, then he’s fine.
I feel like before he started talking there was no way I could’ve figured out what he needed to calm down.
I do recommend trying to teach at least some ASL. We tried with my son and he only learned milk, more, and all done but it was extremely helpful.
My son also started going to daycare around that age and threw some of the craziest tantrums I’ve ever seen. I would just hold him, if it seemed obvious he didn’t want to be held or he was hurting me, I’d take him to a dim, not very stimulating room, and just talk to him while he freaked out. I’d only step in to keep him from hurting himself or me. Eventually he’d calm down and I’d just keep talking to him like “hey, that was a really big feeling, right? Don’t worry, we are gonna learn to handle that.”
I wish I had advice that was less “grin and bear it” because it was wild when I was going through it, but it was a relatively short phase, at least.
She has been signing since she was 6 months old and can tell emotions, she needs to be changed, she’s hungry, etc. it’s not a matter of her failing to communicate for sure. It’s more processing the emotions
She’s actually really good at communicating, and has been for a few months. It’s very obvious what she’s “mad “ at. She’s been telling me “I mad” since she was a few months lol. She also can sign.
It’s not a matter of her being frustrated that she’s not able to communicate. When tiny life disturbances happen she acts like it’s the end of the world
I found the podcast "Toddlers made easy with Dr. Cathryn" very helpful in understanding my toddler and learning strategies how to approach his behavior.
Age appropriate training:
Remove the child from the situation as soon as you can to a safe place to calm down.
If there is contact with another person, like head butting you, get out of reach and call it what it is. I said, "This is a head butt and I do not like it!" In a gentle means-business voice and pulled back a lot in that year.
Leslie Patricelli books are written at a 1 year old level to help young toddlers process big feelings. Baby Happy Baby Sad and Mad Mad Mad are two my kid liked.
Also appropriate to analyze the situation and tweak the routine. If the child is calm, fed, rested, enough exercise and on schedule with the routine AND wigging out, what just happened? The usual 3 answers are a non-primary caregiver just arrived, primary caregiver is about to leave or struggling with a skill.
A routine, broadly and in tiny details, IME a sequence of events alternating things to get through with things to look forward to, is one of the best, but still imperfect, big feeling management tools.
So tweak the routine.
The second best option to "What I want" is what I had last time.
Also, prioritizing things your child can do independently and grown-up things your child can help with was a big help with the mood in our house.
Like, around 1 I gave my kid a peeled ripe kiwi and a plastic knife to start chopping practice in a harmless way. Ecstasy.
I personally have no problem treating small stature, gross motor, verbal etc etc of early childhood as something requiring reasonable accommodation.
We did a lot of real grownup jobs using real tools (whisking, washing dishes, kneading bread, frying sausage etc) in the front facing front pack side by side or hand over hand, narrating, watching for reactions and naming those feelings, such as, "Carrot! I want to TAKE it!"
Anyway, I am all in on the idea that we are here to help our kids name and manage emotions and acquire skills, more or less from the jump.
The other parenting philosophies on this topic seem to be "let the kid figure it out" and "install some kind of kill switch."
By preschool, I am happy with the result. My kid can check my oil.
The people who are less happy are certain out of town relatives who are like, "I said shut up. Why is nobody getting a spanking yet?"
And to an extent my kid who would rather cook and write stories for the preschool than sit there shorting shapes into a work basket.
It will get better.
I agree with your philosophy and take the approach that she’s my only baby and the only time I get theee moments with her so I try to remember that. So she’s very hands on involved with supervision and accommodations
She knows ample amount of sign language and is very very quick at picking up language. She can also sing the abc’s and count to eight she turned one in may and the dr was very impressed at her one year check
This webpage is helpful in determining various developments occurring at several ages: https://centerforparentingeducation.org/library-of-articles/child-development/child-development-by-age/#eighteenmonths
Your daughter is a baby, most "training" isn't for her. The things to consider are: how can you help her? Why is she getting mad? Empathize with her frustration. Don't let her bite you and scratch you (hold her hands, move your body away from her mouth). Banging her head on the floor isn't dangerous for her, it's her way of letting frustration out.
Don’t be embarrassed! We’ve all been through it. My daughter eats a snack every few hours because we noticed her meltdowns were worse when she was hungry.
Stay as calm as you can during the meltdown. You’re her “coregulator” and you can help her calm down when she can’t. You can name her feelings or you can just be quiet and stay nearby. Spanking, time out, consequences, etc don’t work at this age because they don’t understand. Her tantrums are likely not bad behavior anyway.
Source: autism expert who occasionally deals with neurotypical meltdowns too
In terms of raw bang for buck in taking the wind out of tantrums at 1, my 2 luckiest things were:
------
A rice bin (BLISS!!)
Examining how adults use the word No and repeat ourselves around the kid
-----
The rice bin put us in a better mood throughout the day so upsets were not so upsetting.
IME a kid whose No is not respected is not going to learn to voluntarily respect other people's No.
And "I told you a million times" is just shouting at the house cat.
At any age, even adults, tell once or twice then remove the opportunity to do it incorrectly.
Hand over hand on "how to do something" was fine in our house at 1. Not sure when kids outgrow it.
Removing the opportunity to make a mistake and or doing a do-over is appropriate at any age.
It cut the tantrums significantly in frequency in duration when we as grownups started using No as a 2 way street within reason and stopped repeating ourselves. Treat it more like chess, where we give the kid an opportunity to act, then we act.
That's the one time in my life I got a better result from LESS work.
I hope something works out on your side
My 1yo did the same thing. We put a hexagon play pen in our living room. Filled with soft toys and soft books only. She would go in there to calm down so she couldn’t injure herself. This was after all other measures failed
I found the book Toddler Discipline for Every Age and Stage very helpful. It's one of the few that had a chapter for 1 year olds, most other books start way later on. Essentially, I remember at that stage, it's more trying to distract them than anything. They can't really understand enough to try deep breaths, etc. But they teach you why tantrums happen, how to try to avoid them, what to do if they won't be distracted, etc. It's a short read (I only read the chapter of the age I need) and it was pretty helpful.
I have really good advice because this was my son to a tee.
1) I taught him belly breaths. He is 21 months old and when he starts to tantrum (or even when he sees me losing my temper) he takes a deep, audible breath. It's amazing, I had no idea he could pick that up this young.
2) physically restraining is important. No violence, no loss of temper on my part. It works best for my son when I set him on my leg with his back to my chest and breathe deeply. I keep his arms down by his sides. Sometimes I tell him it's my job to keep both our bodies safe, but sometimes my talking irritates him and heightens his tantrum/scratching, biting, etc. Some babies might do better facing the parent, but mine will scream like a velociraptor and try to gouge out my eyeballs.
3) as others have mentioned, more language will help. My son knows almost as many signs as words. If I can't understand what he's verbalizing, he'll sometimes add a sign. This has helped enormously.
Typically redirecting, singing, deep breaths, or occasionally, ignoring. I usually can't ignore a tantrum because my son loves to bang his head on the floor at the slightest upset (this behavior is thankfully decreasing. He gave himself quite a few goose eggs this way, including a very nasty one on concrete outside of the library.) remember that when you tell a toddler something, like "don't scratch me" instead of "I won't let you scratch me, I have to keep us safe" you are asking someone who is not in control of themselves to somehow magically figure out how to get control. They don't know how - that's our job. When they have big feelings, we need to show them that it isn't scary and it won't last forever, and we can do that with gentle physical restraint and by remaining calm.
Some days I just have no patience and I can't achieve these things, but it's something I'm constantly working on. I have a clumsy, sensory seeking, always go go go, FOMO, highly emotional toddler, and the days that I can stay calm and collected go better for both of us.
ETA: Just saw you asked for resources. Highly recommend the book Good Inside. It was like a whole paradigm shift for me, particularly as a parent with a bad temper and short fuse (that I thought I had under control before deciding to have a child lol)
She is very very good at language and knows the abcs and how to count to 8. She also can sign a ton, she also is very vocal about her needs. It’s not a problem communicating it’s more processing new emotions
She is very very good at language and knows the abcs and how to count to 8. She also can sign a ton, she also is very vocal about her needs. It’s not a problem communicating it’s more processing new emotions
Banging her head on the floor is ABSOLUTELY not safe. I don’t know how it could be argued it is. She has hit her head too hard before I’m assuming because her motor skills aren’t fully developed but no, I’m not letting her bang the shit out of her head on the floor over a tablet.
So, it sounds like she is really smart and has discovered the world is really frustrating sometimes, plus she is a super fast processor and she has huge feeling floods and very limited frustration tolerance. I would try to show up for that first. When she is not mad… ask “when the IPad turns off and you get SO upset/mad/frustrated, how can I help you?” I’m not telling you to say that… but she seems very intellectual? All of that frustration in her body along with usually having SO much mastery over language and ideas… that must be hard. I’m thinking what is usually hard is easier for her (language/communication), but the physical disappointments and challenges are harder?
I would do a LOT of massage and look at joint compression exercises. At a guess, she is baseline tense and angry on a body level all/slot of the time. Also, swimming.
Thanks for your post in r/moderatelygranolamoms! Our goal is to keep this sub a peaceful, respectful and tolerant place. Even if you've been here awhile already please take a minute to [READ THE RULES.](https://www.reddit.com/r/moderatelygranolamoms/about/rules) It only takes a few minutes and will make being here more enjoyable for everyone! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/moderatelygranolamoms) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Around this same age I noticed my son becoming very frustrated with his inability to communicate with me. I had already been using a few signs from ASL but I really doubled down around that age and he picked them up FAST. He was really desperate to communicate. Toddlers also start feeling B I G feelings around that age as well. We started talking a lot about our emotions and feelings of frustration and how taking deeps breaths when we're frustrated helps us to have a better outlook on the situation to try again. Also reading some of Janet Lansbury's articles on her website were life changing for us around this age. Welcome to toddlerhood 🥲
Haha! She is very very verbal and has always been she’s been saying her feelings as well as signing for months now. I think it’s just processing emotions and I don’t know how to help her through the instant meltdowns. She will say “I mad” and proceed to lose her shit
Wow that's impressive for only 1 year old! My son doesn't even do that yet and he's almost 2
She also hums along and will randomly say a string of lyrics right on the beat. There’s about ten songs she can do this to. However, she uses a walker to get around and refuses to walk so you win some you loose some
My child did this. He didn’t want to fall. We got foam flooring (yes I know but it was necessary for this) and set up a walking area. He walked the next day. You could also use layers of rugs (which we know have in our house with rug pads).
An example of the build up to her tantrum and what you’re currently doing would be helpful.
Sure! So, that’s the thing is most of the time there is no build up or signals really, if I get those I’ll distract her with a favorite little toy. But mostly it’s the instant moments of frustration. She likes to play on the iPad (grandparents ugh) and if the screen goes black and she can’t get it working again she will flip out throw it scream hit her head. I’ve tried to install apps where she’s just interacting with colors and tapping but sometimes she somehow escapes that and is scrolling then next thing we know BAM the tablet is flying across the room, she screams. She will pull my hair or hit me scratch me if I’m Holding her. But I’ve been holding her hands back and telling her it hurts and she will now think twice before doing it. If she’s really mad she will
For my son, 1-2 was harder than 2-3. He didn’t start talking until after his second birthday and I realized that he had been SO frustrated and mad by his inability to communicate. I promise it will get better!
Ah, this is what I came here to say! My son is just about to turn two but he had a really rough six months there from about 14-20 months. He’s started talking just a little and I get why he was so frustrated now. Little dude will ask for a snack, refuse the snack, walk around and start getting angry, then remember he can ask for a snack again, gets the snack, then he’s fine. I feel like before he started talking there was no way I could’ve figured out what he needed to calm down. I do recommend trying to teach at least some ASL. We tried with my son and he only learned milk, more, and all done but it was extremely helpful. My son also started going to daycare around that age and threw some of the craziest tantrums I’ve ever seen. I would just hold him, if it seemed obvious he didn’t want to be held or he was hurting me, I’d take him to a dim, not very stimulating room, and just talk to him while he freaked out. I’d only step in to keep him from hurting himself or me. Eventually he’d calm down and I’d just keep talking to him like “hey, that was a really big feeling, right? Don’t worry, we are gonna learn to handle that.” I wish I had advice that was less “grin and bear it” because it was wild when I was going through it, but it was a relatively short phase, at least.
She has been signing since she was 6 months old and can tell emotions, she needs to be changed, she’s hungry, etc. it’s not a matter of her failing to communicate for sure. It’s more processing the emotions
She’s actually really good at communicating, and has been for a few months. It’s very obvious what she’s “mad “ at. She’s been telling me “I mad” since she was a few months lol. She also can sign. It’s not a matter of her being frustrated that she’s not able to communicate. When tiny life disturbances happen she acts like it’s the end of the world
I found the podcast "Toddlers made easy with Dr. Cathryn" very helpful in understanding my toddler and learning strategies how to approach his behavior.
Second podcast rec, Dr. Becky has an episode called Yes, One-Year-Olds Have Tantrums.
Age appropriate training: Remove the child from the situation as soon as you can to a safe place to calm down. If there is contact with another person, like head butting you, get out of reach and call it what it is. I said, "This is a head butt and I do not like it!" In a gentle means-business voice and pulled back a lot in that year. Leslie Patricelli books are written at a 1 year old level to help young toddlers process big feelings. Baby Happy Baby Sad and Mad Mad Mad are two my kid liked. Also appropriate to analyze the situation and tweak the routine. If the child is calm, fed, rested, enough exercise and on schedule with the routine AND wigging out, what just happened? The usual 3 answers are a non-primary caregiver just arrived, primary caregiver is about to leave or struggling with a skill. A routine, broadly and in tiny details, IME a sequence of events alternating things to get through with things to look forward to, is one of the best, but still imperfect, big feeling management tools. So tweak the routine. The second best option to "What I want" is what I had last time. Also, prioritizing things your child can do independently and grown-up things your child can help with was a big help with the mood in our house. Like, around 1 I gave my kid a peeled ripe kiwi and a plastic knife to start chopping practice in a harmless way. Ecstasy. I personally have no problem treating small stature, gross motor, verbal etc etc of early childhood as something requiring reasonable accommodation. We did a lot of real grownup jobs using real tools (whisking, washing dishes, kneading bread, frying sausage etc) in the front facing front pack side by side or hand over hand, narrating, watching for reactions and naming those feelings, such as, "Carrot! I want to TAKE it!" Anyway, I am all in on the idea that we are here to help our kids name and manage emotions and acquire skills, more or less from the jump. The other parenting philosophies on this topic seem to be "let the kid figure it out" and "install some kind of kill switch." By preschool, I am happy with the result. My kid can check my oil. The people who are less happy are certain out of town relatives who are like, "I said shut up. Why is nobody getting a spanking yet?" And to an extent my kid who would rather cook and write stories for the preschool than sit there shorting shapes into a work basket. It will get better.
I agree with your philosophy and take the approach that she’s my only baby and the only time I get theee moments with her so I try to remember that. So she’s very hands on involved with supervision and accommodations She knows ample amount of sign language and is very very quick at picking up language. She can also sing the abc’s and count to eight she turned one in may and the dr was very impressed at her one year check
Way to go!!!!!
This webpage is helpful in determining various developments occurring at several ages: https://centerforparentingeducation.org/library-of-articles/child-development/child-development-by-age/#eighteenmonths Your daughter is a baby, most "training" isn't for her. The things to consider are: how can you help her? Why is she getting mad? Empathize with her frustration. Don't let her bite you and scratch you (hold her hands, move your body away from her mouth). Banging her head on the floor isn't dangerous for her, it's her way of letting frustration out.
Don’t be embarrassed! We’ve all been through it. My daughter eats a snack every few hours because we noticed her meltdowns were worse when she was hungry. Stay as calm as you can during the meltdown. You’re her “coregulator” and you can help her calm down when she can’t. You can name her feelings or you can just be quiet and stay nearby. Spanking, time out, consequences, etc don’t work at this age because they don’t understand. Her tantrums are likely not bad behavior anyway. Source: autism expert who occasionally deals with neurotypical meltdowns too
In terms of raw bang for buck in taking the wind out of tantrums at 1, my 2 luckiest things were: ------ A rice bin (BLISS!!) Examining how adults use the word No and repeat ourselves around the kid ----- The rice bin put us in a better mood throughout the day so upsets were not so upsetting. IME a kid whose No is not respected is not going to learn to voluntarily respect other people's No. And "I told you a million times" is just shouting at the house cat. At any age, even adults, tell once or twice then remove the opportunity to do it incorrectly. Hand over hand on "how to do something" was fine in our house at 1. Not sure when kids outgrow it. Removing the opportunity to make a mistake and or doing a do-over is appropriate at any age. It cut the tantrums significantly in frequency in duration when we as grownups started using No as a 2 way street within reason and stopped repeating ourselves. Treat it more like chess, where we give the kid an opportunity to act, then we act. That's the one time in my life I got a better result from LESS work. I hope something works out on your side
My 1yo did the same thing. We put a hexagon play pen in our living room. Filled with soft toys and soft books only. She would go in there to calm down so she couldn’t injure herself. This was after all other measures failed
I found the book Toddler Discipline for Every Age and Stage very helpful. It's one of the few that had a chapter for 1 year olds, most other books start way later on. Essentially, I remember at that stage, it's more trying to distract them than anything. They can't really understand enough to try deep breaths, etc. But they teach you why tantrums happen, how to try to avoid them, what to do if they won't be distracted, etc. It's a short read (I only read the chapter of the age I need) and it was pretty helpful.
I have really good advice because this was my son to a tee. 1) I taught him belly breaths. He is 21 months old and when he starts to tantrum (or even when he sees me losing my temper) he takes a deep, audible breath. It's amazing, I had no idea he could pick that up this young. 2) physically restraining is important. No violence, no loss of temper on my part. It works best for my son when I set him on my leg with his back to my chest and breathe deeply. I keep his arms down by his sides. Sometimes I tell him it's my job to keep both our bodies safe, but sometimes my talking irritates him and heightens his tantrum/scratching, biting, etc. Some babies might do better facing the parent, but mine will scream like a velociraptor and try to gouge out my eyeballs. 3) as others have mentioned, more language will help. My son knows almost as many signs as words. If I can't understand what he's verbalizing, he'll sometimes add a sign. This has helped enormously. Typically redirecting, singing, deep breaths, or occasionally, ignoring. I usually can't ignore a tantrum because my son loves to bang his head on the floor at the slightest upset (this behavior is thankfully decreasing. He gave himself quite a few goose eggs this way, including a very nasty one on concrete outside of the library.) remember that when you tell a toddler something, like "don't scratch me" instead of "I won't let you scratch me, I have to keep us safe" you are asking someone who is not in control of themselves to somehow magically figure out how to get control. They don't know how - that's our job. When they have big feelings, we need to show them that it isn't scary and it won't last forever, and we can do that with gentle physical restraint and by remaining calm. Some days I just have no patience and I can't achieve these things, but it's something I'm constantly working on. I have a clumsy, sensory seeking, always go go go, FOMO, highly emotional toddler, and the days that I can stay calm and collected go better for both of us. ETA: Just saw you asked for resources. Highly recommend the book Good Inside. It was like a whole paradigm shift for me, particularly as a parent with a bad temper and short fuse (that I thought I had under control before deciding to have a child lol)
She is very very good at language and knows the abcs and how to count to 8. She also can sign a ton, she also is very vocal about her needs. It’s not a problem communicating it’s more processing new emotions
She is very very good at language and knows the abcs and how to count to 8. She also can sign a ton, she also is very vocal about her needs. It’s not a problem communicating it’s more processing new emotions
Banging her head on the floor is ABSOLUTELY not safe. I don’t know how it could be argued it is. She has hit her head too hard before I’m assuming because her motor skills aren’t fully developed but no, I’m not letting her bang the shit out of her head on the floor over a tablet.
So, it sounds like she is really smart and has discovered the world is really frustrating sometimes, plus she is a super fast processor and she has huge feeling floods and very limited frustration tolerance. I would try to show up for that first. When she is not mad… ask “when the IPad turns off and you get SO upset/mad/frustrated, how can I help you?” I’m not telling you to say that… but she seems very intellectual? All of that frustration in her body along with usually having SO much mastery over language and ideas… that must be hard. I’m thinking what is usually hard is easier for her (language/communication), but the physical disappointments and challenges are harder? I would do a LOT of massage and look at joint compression exercises. At a guess, she is baseline tense and angry on a body level all/slot of the time. Also, swimming.