I wonder how much experience the nanny has. The OP says she’s leaving this job to go on to her professional career.
Is she simply a college kid who’s been a deputy Mom to this kid for the last 2-3 years and has no other child-handling experience or training of her own? Or is she somebody who’s been a trained *au pair *for a decade or more and has raised / is raising a dozen 2-3 years olds?
How much weight to place on her concerns depends a lot on that. If she and the OP’s wife are both learning by doing on this one child, it’s not surprising they’re coming to similar conclusions: they’ve taught each other everything they know about how to be a Mom. They’re both dealing with a sample size of 1.
IOW, two votes by two different people with two different backgrounds is different than two Xerox copies of one vote.
Regardless, it’s still the two people that spend the most time with the child feeling like something is “off”. I mean, it could be a low-level ear infection or a cavity or constipation or something is making the kid cranky and irritable: thinking his behavior is “off” isn’t an insult to his character.
This isn’t a “majority rules” situation. If any caregiver is concerned, that’s reason enough to explore the matter a little.
I was mostly responding to several posts that seemed to say “Well if even the nanny’s concerned it must be real”. IOW they were assuming nanny expertise that may, or may not, actually be in the picture. I’d just like to know which.
If my kid only actually has a fever once for every 5 times I check, that doesn’t mean I wasted my time the other 4 incidents: reasonably prudent behavior means that more often than not it will be fine. I know when my son was born every pediatrician, nurse, OB we came into contact with went overboard reassuring us that we should call early and often. They were clearly more worried we would dismiss symptoms than that we would waste anyone’s time looking into them.
And if the kid just turned 3, it will be a year before they go back to the doctor.
Little guy is facing a lot of changes, and change can cause stress. Imagine being a little person and not having the vocabulary or social skills to express or react to that stress. On top of that, a 2 or 3 year old is going to test boundaries and limits. I’ve also heard, no personal experience, I don’t have any boys, that they train later than girls, so 2 or a young 3 may be expecting a lot. I think he’s a normal toddler.
It hasn’t been very long since this was perfectly normal. I’m 40. My parents were ashamed that I wasn’t fully potty trained until shortly after my third birthday, because no one they knew had a kid in diapers that old. It’s only been 20 or so years since people began training later en mass.
Two-year-olds do throw tantrums, but it’s a sometimes thing. If he’s acting like this little kiddo on a daily basis, it could be a problem.
What **even sven **says. I’m a children’s librarian, and spend a lot of time around young children, so I see the full range of childish behavior. It disturbs me, and I see it happen fairly often, when a child exhibits behavior outside the bounds of normal two-ness, and have it dismissed as “oh he’s just going through the terrible twos.” So if it were me, I would take the concerns of those who care for him seriously. I would try to calmly and objectively monitor and assess the situation.
I work in a preschool. Almost every parent who has a baby when they have a kid just over two suddenly starts pushing the 2+ kid to toilet train, I suspect because they find it exhausting to have two kids in diapers at the same time. The kid is being rushing into it, and at the same time, is trying to adjust to the baby, and desiring to be the baby, so is going to have a little natural regression. I have even seen freshly toilet-trained kids suddenly start having accidents left and right when a baby comes into the house, and actually ask to be in diapers again, because they want the parental attention the baby is getting at diaper changes.
I don’t know what the solution is. I don’t know if you need to ease up on potty training, or if that will send the wrong message, because I don’t have enough information.
A couple of things, though. Has he ever been to a dentist? Do you brush his teeth? If he has never been to a dentist, it is time for his first appointment. Make sure there is no distress with his teeth causing problems.
The other, is that it is remotely possible he has given himself a bladder infection. He is handling his penis, and is learning to wipe. Bladder infections are unusual in boys, but not impossible. He also could not be emptying his bladder all the way each time he pees, and that could cause irritation.
If he were my son (and I have a son), I would take him to the dentist and the doctor to make sure that there is no biological basis for his behavior. After all, all the behavior intervention in the world will not stop a kid peeing his pants if he had a UTI.
Once he has been cleared of physical problems, then you can look at behavior interventions.
Last, have you asked him what is wrong? Do his teeth hurt? Does his pee-pee hurt? Does his tummy hurt? He might not be too young to tell you what is wrong, it just might take some time to get to it.
Wait, one more thing. I know it is hard, with a baby, but do you and your wife each take some time each day to spend time just with him? It doesn’t have to be a long time, because kids his age don’t have a good sense of time. What matters is that he has private time with each of you so he knows he is still important, baby or not.
For the question of now not listening when asked to do something, welcome to parenthood.
Changes in what a child will listen to change as the child develops (or seemingly regresses . . .)
That’s one area that does change with the terrible twos.
Or the OP, how does he seem to you? Any more specific than “off?”
Fortunately my job affords me the opportunity to work from home a lot, so I get to see him in action.
Medically, he’s fine. We actually just had a doctor’s visit on Thursday. No dentist, but we brush his teeth.
From what I can tell, my son is very much like me. He gets engrossed in what he’s doing and doesn’t want to get pulled away from it. And he gets bored easily and starts seeking attention. He also likes things his way.
Even when he pitches a fit, they don’t seem particularly violent or out of control.
He seems to adore his new baby sister.
He interacts well with other kids.
I try to spend some father/son time each day with him. We live in a very walkable city so he gets jazzed up just going to the waterfront and watching the ferryboats land. Then we just run around the various parks and playgrounds.
To be honest, to me it just seems like he has a ton of energy and like any two year old, randomly picks battles to assert his independence (i.e. “NO PANTS!!!” ) But I’m a lot more physical than my wife, so I think she just finds it exhausting.
When my kids were around that age, we had them in day care, but my job was more flexible so I actually did more of the parenting than my wife. She would during the breaks between semesters when she wasn’t teaching.
Some of the quotes are in different order.
The behavior sounds much more like a typical two-year-old than a medical condition to me, but I’m certainly not a child psychologist.
If you are interacting daily in something more than just five minutes of play, then don’t discount your experience as well. The more that you and your wife can work together rather than discount the other’s opinions, the better.
So you are saying you are a two year old?
Actually, that sounds like a healthy two year old. This is how they are. They are supposed to want things their way, that’s their nature. I would be far, far more concerned about someone that age who didn’t have at least one minor fit a day.
Have you found any good books on childhood development / psychology? I really like the ones which show what kids are like, rather than “parenting” ones which try to tell you how to deal with it. For example, on book showed a study of the difference on how various aged kids interacted in a play room with lots of toys, and left traces of the path they took. A two year old was bouncing back and forth all the time, with only a few minutes at one toy. By the time the child was four, there was more time at each toy and not as much back and forth. Understanding that really helped me develop my own age appropriate strategies.
If your boss came in and yanked you from your corner office and sent you back into cubicle city, then you sure as hell wouldn’t go away meekly. The only difference between us and them is that (hopefully*) we’ve learned that having to have milk in a yellow cup and not a blue cup isn’t the same as a significant demotion.
*Yes, and we all know adults who are still operating as emotional toddlers.
It really doesn’t help the child to outright dismiss the concern, any more than having a friend blow you off if your thing happened. This is why patience and empathy is so important in parenting. As well as having someone take over because no one has that much patience all the time
As far as being bored easily. Of course, he’s two. If he’s 9 and still can’t still for 10 minutes come back and we’ll talk again.
OK. Print that sentence out in 50 pts font, post it on the fridge; give daily thanks to the deity of your choice for your good fortune in life.
I had a relatively easy girl and a more difficult boy who did have out of control tantrums. Similar parenting, different personality. He’s getting better now, but we went through a couple of very frustrating times. However, by changing approaches and his eventual maturity, things got better. Again, I’m lucky compared to some people who run into that problem for much, much longer, or who have children with behavior issues.
It sounds like that to me. With my wife, we try pick the things which we are better at and give the other a break. If you can realize it’s simply easier for you to deal with NO PANTS boy than she is, then taking over as much as possible makes things smoother.
Stereotypes aren’t particularly the end-all, but often boys have far more energy than girls. For me, it just makes much more sense to find ways to channel that energy into fun things rather than have it diverted into daily battles.
Of course, there are low energy boys and high energy girls as well, and so it should be framed as high energy vs. low energy rather than boys vs. girls.
OK, parent of 3 kids chiming in. Youngest are twins with one on the autism spectrum.
First, I’m assuming your oldest is your first kid, correct? If so, you don’t really have a benchmark.
Second, potty training in the US tends to be older. In China, most kids are potty trained around 1. It’s a cultural difference thing, me thinks.
Third, does your nanny actually have experience with a ton of kids? Or does your eldest go to a nursery school? I would say an early warning system is if the nursery school highlights this seems abnormal. If you see a hundred kids a day, and notice that your son is an outlier, then I would heed that and investigate as much as possible. If the nursery school says this is pretty typical behavior, then that would be good enough for me.
seriously, if you have people around a lot of kids (pediatrician, maybe the nanny, pre-school, etc) and they highlight your kid MIGHT be an outlier, then go hard to see if there is fire behind the smoke. I personally wouldn’t go for self diagnosis for the Dope, as good as it is.
Yes RE post 33. Doctors have clinic visits to bencheark against. I would certainly look at that.
Again, if kidlet is going to a regular pre-school, and pre school raises some flags, I would heed those warnings. If they don’t, then kidlet is probably within the “standard” spectrum. I’m jus’ sayin’ if some professionals that see lots of kids smell some smoke, you’d be well off to heed that and check if there is fire.
Family gets dressed and heads to brunch. Boy is usually pretty good about eating in restaurants, but still I’d rather walk around the block with him so as to limit the amount of time he’s forced to sit in a high chair containing himself. As we walk around, he points out various things he knows (That’s a truck! That’s a dog!)
He’s a bit obsessive about a couple of things. Specifically, street lights (light broken!!..No, they just are turned off during the daytime), garage doors (as well as any door in the building that is open when it shouldn’t be), elevators, boats, geese (and to a lesser extent ducks and other migratory water birds), helicopters, firetrucks, cars, Paw Patrol and now basketball. On some level, I guess I’m always concerned about autism or OCD or some other developmental issue. But it seems to be just childlike enthusiasm for stuff he sees around town. More importantly, he is very affectionate with his parents, sister and nanny.
He’s a bit resistant when I tell him it’s time to go back to the restaurant, but I’m ultimately able to convince him without too much fuss or a blowup.
The one “problem” is that he often refuses to go down for his nap. Which often leads him to become more manic, crabby and obstinate as the day goes on. Like today for example, he not only refused to pick up his toys, but kept pulling more out to intentionally make a bigger mess. And yet he quickly picked up my lessons on crossing the street (PUSH BUTTON! LIGHT CHANGE!!)
Our nanny is relatively young and doesn’t have experience with a ton of kids (a few other families, not hundreds). But she also just completed her masters in child development so she is actually educated on this stuff. She doesn’t think there is anything “wrong” with him though. And in all fairness, she does spoil him a bit.
The way I interpret his behavior is that sometimes he has difficulty knowing the difference between “play time” and “not play time”. And because he’s so cute and rambunctious, people often give him a pass. Like running around the yard having daddy chase you is fine. Except when daddy tells you it’s time to go in for dinner.
You can ‘toilet train’ some babies quite young by observing their natural routine and warning signs, and putting them on the potty when it’s time for them to go. That can be very reliable but it’s different to the child themself realising they need to go and taking the appropriate steps. Then that latter could also just happen as a natural development and you would hardly even notice.
I think taking a two yr old for a walk while the family has brunch is an excellent idea. Seems like he enjoyed it!
Just a thought, maybe the adults need to be thinking ahead a bit more. If you take him out to run around before dinner, what’s the plan for getting him back inside, type thing. Same for getting him to nap. Maybe he needs more time/steps to transition than you might be expecting.
