Behaviour changes in toddler

Nicole - posted on 08/05/2011

Well I used to work in a day care and am now a teacher. when i worked in the day care i saw many girls ur daughters age who had the same problem. most of the time it was a power struggle and not a medical problem, they see it as a way to get attention. as for the bath and scared of the dark, those are common problems in toddlers. i put my twin 1 year olds in the tub together, although they love baths either way. im sure u have a night light in her room, but does she sleep in the same room with her twin? has there been any changes in her routine or urs. maybe instead of a bath u can do a shower, some kids like it they find it fun. have have not had any of these problems as of yet, but have dealt with many kids. hope this helps some and good luck :)

Alda - posted on 08/05/2011

Thanks for that :-). She has her tummy x-ray next week to check for a blockage (they were born at 28 weeks, so the GP is a bit concerned). She suddenly started enjoying having a bath again, so that's good. We have a nightlight on, but it's a battle, because she keeps wanting it on, off, on, off etc. She tends to fixate or obsess about something 'till she finds the next thing (much like her daddy).



I don't know what to do about the poo thing though, I might try your suggestion, but Alice is an extremely stubborn child and I don't know if that will work. We used the 'Potty Boot Camp' and had them potty trained in a week, except for Alice's poo thing. I'm sure we'll all get through it eventually, we just have to grit our teeth and keep cleaning up poo (oh joy lol). Good luck to you as well :-) x

Candi - posted on 07/29/2011

Oh lordy. We are going through the exact same thing. We told one of our twins that poo is what's left over from our food that our body can't use, and his brother, who is poo-phobic, stopped eating so that he wouldn't be making poo. Guh. Three-year-old logic. It sounds like she's manifesting all of her anxieties about potty training throughout everything in her life, and she's trying to control her life. For the scared of the dark, try putting a small nightlight in her room or get a clock that glows so that she has something to focus on. Also try playing some music gently as she's going to sleep or using white noise. For the bath, has she said why she's scared of the bath? She might be afraid of that the sensation will make her poo in the tub and she'll get in trouble. Sometimes warm water gets Christopher moved to poo, and it's a bad situation. I've been working on keeping my husband from getting mad about it because it's making Christopher scared to poo at all. Finally, for potty training, we've tried EVERYTHING. Finally, I took to the store, chose some things that he really, really, REALLY wants, I've put them right in front of his place at the dinner table. He can't play with them until he poops on the potty. He's earned one so far, and is very excited to try for more.