Terrible 2's Again

Callum is still having his nightly meltdown's where he'll lie on the floor and just cry and shout for no apparent reason. We've come to the conclusion that it's maybe just his way of unwinding after being at day care all day. Our usual nightly routine is get home (at just before 6pm) give the kids some water and a few crackers and switch on Sesame Street while I make their dinner. They usually watch a little, play, eat dinner, play a little more then bath & bed (in bed by 7:15).

Well with the event of Callum's meltdowns this hasn't been working and we've all been stressed and grumpy so we decided to switch tactics with yesterday being the first night. No TV, no music, we dumped out some megablocks on the floor and I sang silly made up songs. Callum still laid on the floor with his back to me and whinged but I could hear him laughing when I did fake sneezes and did other silly stuff. Kieran was having fun as well, we switched from blocks to a big bucket of cars/planes/boats/trains etc and Callum became even more interested and very slowly joined Kieran and I and started driving the train around going "choo, choo".

So we still had some episodes of crying and wailing but nothing like we have been having. We kept everything very up and happy, gave them both lots of praise for any good thing that they did. It was hard work, but once they were in bed we both agreed that it had worked and that we felt less stressed.

I think being in day care all day where he needs to be good, coupled with him transitioning to a new classroom, Kieran being in his classroom and still getting the hang of walking was just too much and he had to let off steam. The quieter, less stressful evening with more quality time made a big difference.

We still need to work on some discipline tactics for when he really is being naughty (going to read my copy of 1-2-3 Magic this weekend) but at least this should hopefully make the evenings go smoother.