Q&A: Enough crying already!

Blake writes:

"Please help I don’t know what to do.  I am a stay at home mom (engineer) of a 20 month old and a 3 year old.  My 20 month old seems to cry all the time instead of using his words to get what he wants.  He does not have a great vocabulary yet but knows a lot of words (juice, snack, bath, night night, more, etc).  I am so sick of the crying and I have tried time out for unnecessary crying and it works for the moment but then he just cries the next time.  I feel like it is frustration but I don’t know how to make him stop every time he wants something.  He throws fits, hits and kicks and I ignore him or put him in time out.  I don’t know how to make this stop.  Can you help me please?"

Hey! My younger one is turning 2 next week, and this was our house 4 months ago.

I actually think this is pretty common for a younger child (I'm talking birth order, not chronological age). They seem not to be as verbal as early as the older children. Everyone says that it's because the older child talks for them or gets them whatever they need, but I think that's only part of it. Another part is that I think lots of us, despite our best intentions, just hand the second child whatever they want just to make things go more smoothly because we're trapped between the demands of the older child and the demands of the younger child. (I'm raising my hand.) So the child gets rewarded for crying. Which in turn makes us nuts, and we just want the crying to end. It turns into one big crazy-making cycle.

Of course we know that the answer is just to be firm about not responding to crying, encouraging use of words, blah blah freaking blah. Who has the energy or time for that with the second child? The fact of the matter is that in a few months he'll be able to talk more and will discover the joys of having his requests met cheerfully and more rapidly. The free market will regulate itself and he'll do a little more talking and a little less crying every day, until one day you'll suddenly realize that he hasn't cried, not even a crocodile tear, for a whole 30-minute period.

And then he'll turn 3, and it'll all go down the tubes again temporarily.

One thing that helped us a lot here was for me to verbalize for him what his negative feelings were. "You're so angry! You wanted that truck but it belongs to your brother and he's playing with it. You want to scream and hit someone! You just feel angry and sad and frustrated all at the same time."  Having his feelings expressed for him seemed to be all he needed, and then he could calm down. (If it works for you, you can thank my therapist, who pointed out that a lot of the recurring anger and tantrums were probably because he wasn't feeling understood, and suggested the verbalizing technique.)

In other news, I think the time-out is highly ineffective for a 20-month-old, but it is probably extraordinarily effective for you. So when you just can't take it, instead of putting him in a time-out, put yourself in one with a magazine and a beverage of your choice for 5 minutes. Then you'll be able to return to the scene of the donnybrook with a little more strength and calm than when you left.

Courage. This stage won't last much longer. You're doing a great job.

Comments

[Moxie]

Ha. I was just getting dressed for work and thought my younger one was doing some repetitive crying/whining in the living room. I was just about to yell to him to use his words to tell me what was wrong, when I realized the noise was coming from a mourning dove cooing outside my window. D'oh.

[paula]

Maybe another factor?

I'm only on my first child (almost 22 months), but around 20 months he entered a second period of velcro kid, where he was pretty much entirely stuck to me or miserable.

This was after many happy months of me or my husband being good company for daily tasks and him being pretty comfortable in new situations and playing on his own. I've interpreted it as something like stranger anxiety 2.0.

Somewhere I recall something like this being on a developmental timeline. Obviously, with one kid, its a lot easier to just hang with him while he gets through this....but I do imagine a day when he doesn't join me on every visit to the toilet. That said, he does seem to be coming out of this phases which is a relief for me and a joy for his dad.

[Tina B.]

I am waiting for the day when my almost 18 month old does not cry when he wakes up in the morning. I know that is a really silly request, but he knows and use "momm" and "daddy" in proper context. He uses it often, except for when he wakes up.

[Shandra]

I just came in in frustration 'cause I tried to take my 20 month old - who has an extensive signing vocabulary and is really verbal, and the eldest - on a walk and he only cried the whole time and refused to walk and I still don't know what he was upset about.

No advice just this too shall pass (and he is watching a signing time video while I calm down because my nice walk on a gorgeous day was RUINED I tell you RUINED!)

[Maureen]

Maybe try a little sign language - really basic words that are hard to say. We found our whole world opened up for my twin boys when they learned to sign "more". The next word was "hungry" and "milk". It was amazing how much could be communicated (especially their basic needs) with those three words. We actually just learned a new sign (we meaning me as my boys now 2 and saying words so fast so we don't sign as much) - "help". That would have been a great word to add to our simple repertoire.

Good luck... as the others above said, this phase will definitely pass. You just have to hang in there until it does :)

[Jane Plane]

My second is 28 months old now, so it all seems so far away, but I could sign on to both a developmental leap in the works and to Second Child Syndrome.

We did a lot of work helping him to use his words, and tried not to comply with his crying requests until he had at least been able to spit out something coherent. Also lots and lots and lots and lots and lots (did I mention lots?) of praise when he would tell us what he needed without crying. And we would hop to as quickly as possible.

An additional frustration was that Older Brother hated the crying even more than we did, so would often undermine our efforts by giving in. But I figure that just cements their us-against-them bond, and that's okay with me.

[Julie]

To echo the above ideas with some resources......Moxie mentioned verbalizing what your child is feeling - Dr. Karp has a follow up book that tells you how to do this called "Happiest Toddler on the Block" and it gives you some ways to do this for your child. Some of it feels over the top....but it does work. I have found that if I echo his level of frustration with words "You're mad MAD MAAAAD!!!" with appropriate facial expressions, he just cracks up and it's over. Sometimes. He also gives you a developmental timeline that gives you a better picture of your toddler and what he/she is going through. While it doesn't make it go any faster, it sometimes helps to know there is a name for it and an age range, and with a calendar you can start to make yourself feel a little better.

Our son doesn't do much talking....but the Signing Time videos (www.signingtime.com) really saved our lives. They are fun videos with lots of animation and songs and he has learned a ton of signs all on his own that help him communicate with us and that also really cuts down on his frustration. They're about 20 minutes long, and if nothing else, it's a good way to get yourself a little peace and quiet. I think they're also aired on PBS.

Good luck! In 2 weeks it will be better, and in a month, it will be even better. Hang in there.

[Blake]

Thanks you for all of the encouragement. I had forgotten about expressing his feelings. I did this with the first one and not sure how I forgot this time around but I did. I will give this a try. I have to say yesterday was a better day and this morning wad not too bad either only a few outburts. I can handle a few but not the constant crying for everything. Thanks Moxie for the help. If I only could have an adult beverage everytime I needed a time out. HAHA Looking through the tunnel and I think I see a light.

[pnuts mama]

amen to those who are experiencing seperation anxiety 2.0 and the confusion over the crying for needs- what do you want, child? whaaaat doooo youuuuuu waaaaaaaaaaaaant? agh. you all know what mommy wants, mommy wants a beer. a nice brooklyn pennant ale would be lovely, thanks.

for us, at that phase of frustration with no way to express it, we started having pnut smack a pillow on the couch (instead of one of us, et al) and us saying "i'm angry! grrr!" and she would also slap the pillow and end up laughing (usually) over the fun of it. we'd always annouce "we don't hit ____, if we are angry we hit a pillow" and physically remove her from the situation to the couch for the anger-release action. it helped, more to diffuse the situation and the rest we take what we can get. good luck!

[Charisse]

You know, I think 20-30 months is really tough, even if your kid is pretty verbal. Somewhere in there, my mom got Mouse a few books about emotions (I think they're called the "how I feel" series--I'm not at home & can't look right now) that seemed to help give her some useful vocabulary. That helped a bit with that stage. My late teether was still intermittently hurting from that at that age too, which made her super cranky.

Anyway, just chiming in with the "it shall pass" chorus...and maybe helping him learn some emotion words that he can use will help him express how he feels as well as what he needs, in a more dealable way. Hang in there!

[hedra]

There's a definite fussy stage/developmental leap between 20 and 22 months. Been there, done that, too many times!

And yes, the emotions are a big issue. I will advise that you watch your child's response to the verbalization, though - some kids find any extremism in the interpretation ('you are SOOOO angry, you could just KICK someone! There's never been an angry this angry!') more alarming than beneficial. Others just want to feel safe with their feelings, so if you just stay there and don't act alarmed by their upset, just a short acknowledgment ('Something upset you') does the trick. Too much vocalizing for those kids seems to infuriate them. And others need the dramatic license. It shouldn't take too many tries to get a handle on it.

I will also advise you to not be alarmed if voicing the feelings makes them breifly MUCH WORSE. All my kids have seemed to take the voicing as permission, which can be pretty alarming, but it is more like a speed-dump becomes possible. If I shut it down (which I admit to having done when the force of an upset really alarmed me... okay, did that A LOT with my second!), then it would just crop up again later. If I let it pour out, it was often really intense and overwhelming (for me as well as them), but waaaaaay shorter. It is still hard for me to remember that. I'd rather sometimes not have to deal with the fury and outrage that my rather passionate children can vent. Sigh. But, hey, better that they are comfortable with their emotions. So far, the more I've voiced and interpreted, and followed along their level of need for the speaking-for-them (varies greatly by child), the more they've managed to get themselves more in hand. And even, when not able to do so, been able to say so! (Can't count the times my second has said, 'I can't calm myself down! I can't! I'm trying, but it doesn't work!')

Moxie, I love you. I busted out laughing at the line about it all blowing apart again when they hit 3. Betraying my age and my odd musical influences, 'life don't clickety-clack down a straight line track; it come together and it come apart' - the developmental stability of kids this age, 'it come together and it come apart'.

I can also ditto the 'second child, no such time or energy!' and the 'how the HECK did I forget to do the things with this child that were so obvious with the first? (like teaching him the words and expressions for his feelings...)' Um. Me, too. And hey, I didn't notice until he was 3, and in a neverending series of catastrophic meltdowns. "Oops" seems pretty lame as a response at that point. But it isn't at all unusual. Sigh.

[rebecca]

i'm feeling overwhelmed at the two month mark... you have all put the fear of god into me about the two year mark :)

[susan]

oh boy, we're only at 11 months so this all scares me a bit since we're in the throws of a major whining phase and mini-tantrum phase. I got a GREAT BOOK called POSITIVE DISCIPLINE (discpline without punishment, using actions rather than words, gentle but firm ...) -- there's one book for toddlers and one for preschoolers. It's great at describing what's age appropriate, how to express their feelings like Moxie and others suggested and that time out doesn't work but to have a pillow or something for you BOTH to go to to RELAX and FEEL BETTER (because feeling good = acting good) ... GREAT BOOK. GREAT BOOK. Did I mention how GREAT the BOOK is.

[nora]

That book sounds interesting. I'll look it up. My 17 month old (who is very verbal and very very busy)has starting throwing fits. I suppose they are typical tantrums but she is so out of it during them that it's like she's not even aware of what's going on. No books, no music, no soother, no blanket, nothing. Today she wouldn't even let me touch her! She stood in the middle of her room screaming and pushing me away. It was breaking my heart. I felt like a total failure as a mother and totally at a loss.

30 mins later she was her loving happy self. Is it possible to be bi polar at 17months? Kidding of course, but it was very traumatic for all of us.

Anyone been through this?

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oh boy, we're only at 11 months so this all scares me a bit since we're in the throws of a major whining phase and mini-tantrum phase. I got a GREAT BOOK called POSITIVE DISCIPLINE (discpline without punishment, using actions rather than words, gentle but firm ...) -- there's one book for toddlers and one for preschoolers. It's great at describing what's age appropriate, how to express their feelings like Moxie and others suggested and that time out doesn't work but to have a pillow or something for you BOTH to go to to RELAX and FEEL BETTER (because feeling good = acting good) ... GREAT BOOK. GREAT BOOK. Did I mention how GREAT the BOOK is.