What's a "normal" level behavior problems for a 2-3 year old?

A few things.
[ul][li]There is no such thing as a normal two year old.[/ul][/li]
[ul][li]Parents of young children get great fun out of telling other parents how much sooner their child was potty trained than yours.[/ul][/li]
[ul][li]You mention that this is your first child. Is it also the first child your nanny has cared for?[/ul][/li]
[ul][li]Based on your description, if there were such a thing as a normal two year old, he’d be it.[/ul][/li]
[ul][li]There is a period in the life of a child where two naps a day is too much and one is not enough. Or that his one nap is too long and he can’t/won’t sleep at night, or too short and he is cranky all day.[/ul][/li]
[ul][li]Don’t try to argue with your wife. It’s normal for a two year old to act up. It’s normal for his mother to worry about it. It’s what they do, both of them. What you describe about walking him around and exploring and talking about everything is the best possible thing you can do, even if it doesn’t help right now.[/ul][/li]
And the one piece of advice that is both completely true, and completely un-helpful - you are going to look back on these days and miss them.

Regards,
Shodan

Couple of notes:

  1. Mom might be freakin’ exhausted at this point. New infant + 3-year-old + prepping to return to work=frazzled nerves. I know I observe a lot more misbehavior among kids when I’m frazzled. This isn’t to say that your wife is in any way at fault, but rather that there may be something you can do to help her build her reserves of patience. Serenity now.
  2. You and your wife may have slightly diverging child-rearing philosophies, and she may be observing that in terms of the kid’s behavior. What you think is normal she thinks is unacceptable.
  3. Related to 1 and 2, if the stuff you think is normal is getting on her very last nerve, it’s totally legit for her to try to modify that behavior.

I’m wondering too if the real concern is that she feels like y’all are not on the same page with discipline. Perhaps she thinks you’re too permissive with him.

Is she more “old school” in her philosophy towards kids? If her (ideal) approach to a fussy, non-cooperative toddler is to be stern with them until they behave as desired, she might have a problem with any approach that looks like appeasement. Even if it seems to be effective in the shortterm, she could be worrying about longterm effects.

I have no idea if such a concern is valid or not; I don’t have much experience with toddlers and you’re probably handling the matter just like I’ll be handling it w/ mine a few months from now. But I did grow up with “old school” parents, so I can intuit the logic behind “old school” parenting philosophies.

In short, the issue here is that she may want you to view his disruptive behavior as a problem that needs to be recognized and curtailed, not shrugged off and maybe even unintentionally encouraged with a “toddlers will be toddlers” attitude. What to do about it? Perhaps be ready to compromise rather insist he’s normal.

No, all of the kids in my extended family did except one. That exception was the only one who wasn’t expected to “help take care of your baby brother” to the extent that they were capable. For the youngest ones that was stuff like handing the clean nappy to whomever was changing the shit-machine, but still, it made them feel important and needed.

What Left Hand of Dorkness and you with the face say. Especially the part where mommy is frazzled.

Which is why it is such a great idea that you take Junior out and run him around and talk about the street lights and take him to the playground and all that. One-on-one time with daddy is good for everybody - you get a chance to manage him the way you want, your wife gets a chance to draw a quiet breath for once in her day, Junior gets to feel special, everybody wins.

Just, whatever you say, DON"T tell your wife how your approach works better than hers. “I can tell you’re exhausted - I will take him to the park for half an hour - you go sit down” = Good Thing to Say. “I don’t know what the problem is - I can handle him just fine, so lighten up” = Bad Thing to Say.

It was always tremendously flattering to see my son’s face light up when I got home, because he knew we were going to walk around the neighborhood looking for squirrels, or dig in the snow, or go to the nearby playground and play on the swings. My wife’s face lit up too - she loves our son, but “GET HIM OUT OF MY HAIR” is a perfectly valid reaction no matter how good the mother.

Children need food, shelter, and attention, in that order. If you give them enough of those three, you can mess up a lot on other things and the kid will still turn out OK, more often than not.

Regards,
Shodan

I don’t have much to add that isn’t already here, but I wanted to say a big thank you to mssmith537 for paying attention and not blowing it off. From my experience too many parents don’t give a shit until it’s way too late.
I’m off to go thank God I at least sort of interacted with one parent today that cares about their kid .

The advice in this thread is good. My comment is on this:

Part of being a parent is giving up control where and when appropriate. That generally does not mean acceding to a child’s demands. But it does mean giving a child choices that are meaningful to the child. This redirects their desire for independence into a choice of actions.

If faced with an unreasonable demand, give the child two reasonable choices and one crazy choice. For example “NO PANTS!!!”, redirect to these blue pants, or these green shorts, or your dad’s boxers (and it say with a crazy grin). He can express rebellion without directly defying you, or not–it’s entirely under his control, which is what he wanted in the first place. Be prepared to go along with the crazy choice; any bluff will be called at some point. And don’t give more than three choices; that’ll simply overwhelm them.

Which reminds me of another key piece of child-raising advice: never make a threat you aren’t prepared to carry out. If you say you’re going to turn around the car if bad behavior continues, you better turn around the car if it does. Empty threats will work a few times, but your kids are inexperienced, not stupid–they’ll figure out what’s a bluff and what’s not. When your children know that promised discipline is not a bluff, they’ll actually obey you when it matters.

This excellent advice bears repeating.

Just wanted to point out that, as a parent of 3 grown kids and a grandparent of a 2 year old, the thing that jumps out a me in these posts is that there are 3 adults in his daily life and all three seem to have a different set of expectations. That in itself is confusing to a child. When mommy says “Not playtime” it means now, when dad says “Not playtime” it means I can push back a little (Bart Simpson would), when nanny says “Not playtime” I can ignore her 'cause she lets me do anything I want. That is, of course, overly simplified, but it is the way a young child thinks. Nuance is all but lost on a 2 year old.

The adults, IMHO, must communicate with each other and find common ground on a set of reasonable, age appropriate expectations that all will enforce consistently. Once that is established you can better evaluate the child’s behavior.

One more thought: does your wife end up being the heavy? If he’s not getting his way, does your wife lay down the law while you grin at the Bart Simpson in him?

I agree with this. The other thing to remember is just because there’s nothing abnormal about a 2 or 3 year old being temperamental or difficult, there should still be age-appropriate consequences for bad behaviors. Even if that consequence is as simple as firmly stated “no”, the kid should know when he’s out of line.

I’ve had two-year-olds who are interested in toilet training and I’ve had some who are not (including my current one). I’ve had two-year-olds who will do anything you ask them to, and those who will refuse to do anything you ask them to, and those who will have days that they go one way and days that they go the other. Really, I wouldn’t worry. They don’t think as linearly as adults (or more mature children) do and are very focused on the moment.

The baby could definitely be affecting things, especially if the two-year-old is not around the parents. There could definitely be jealousy issues. It’s a good idea to show make special time for Mommy and Daddy and two-year-old, AND special time for Mommy, Daddy, two-year-old AND baby, with the two-year-old being the focus with the baby present. Also helpful getting the two-year-old involved in “helping” with the baby and showing how happy the help makes Mommy and Daddy. These steps, in my experience, makes the two-year-old feel less jealous.

Heck, no. My kids always love the anticipation of getting a new baby and enjoy them when they come.

Father of four plus I have 4 younger siblings.
I have not seen where the OP says the older child gets one-on-one time with mom. Time with dad is still not the same as time with mom especially if mom was stay at home for a while before the new baby. I made sure that my wife was able to go one-on-one with each of the kids outside of the entire family. I also to the extent possible did the one-on-one things with each of the kids. My wife was the designated baby-sitter for her extended family along with older siblings moving back home with kids so she had plenty of experience. Yet she missed some of the tell-tales because babies and toddlers don’t read the books on how they are supposed to grow up. Everything is a guide, not a step by step manual.

Four year difference is not the same as a two year difference. We had 3 & 4 years between our first three and 1 1/2 between the last two,

Thanks! It is a lot of fun when I get home from work and he’s like DADDY!! and comes running over to tackle me.

I think a lot of it is my wife just gets frazzled more easily anyway. It’s like she takes it as a personal failing because the doctor said he needs 10 hours of sleep and he just won’t fall asleep. I don’t think she’s “the heavy” though. I’m a lot more authoritative and commanding, so I think he just listens to me a bit better.
I don’t see any jealousy with the new baby. He’s always kissing her head or “escorting” her stroller around the park like a secret service agent or something. Sometimes I’ll sit her on time of him and he’ll start laughing hysterically.

Based on what has been included here, it doesn’t sound to me like this child’s behavior is unusual. However, I wouldn’t simply dismiss the concerns raised by the child’s mother and nanny. They have different perspectives and insights, so they may be seeing something the OP hasn’t.

As toddlers begin to explore their independence, it’s certainly not uncommon for them to have tantrums and discover the power of the word “No!” I have seen a lot of parents baffled by this stage and they spend far too much time cajoling, negotiating, tiptoeing around the child’s tantrums. That approach really helps no one IMO, least of all the toddler. I’m not suggesting that harsh tactics or punishment are necessary, but handing over too much power to a tiny child (as tempting as it might be just to get through the next hour) ultimately can lead to more challenging behavior as he/she searches for the line that really can’t be crossed.

As for toilet training, that is to a great extent culturally determined. For instance, in Russia the age of dispensing with diapers used to be very young (12 months was not uncommon). If you lived in a communal apartment with no access to a washing machine or disposable diapers, the incentive to toilet train children was understandably quite strong. But as modern conveniences and living conditions have changed, the urgency for getting children out of diapers has lessened. However, based on my observations I would say the average age of toilet training remains younger in Russia than in the US or the UK.

It’s been a while, but back in the seventies my daughters were toilet trained after they got over the perfectly normal defiant phase of being 2 years old. It took about a week. A neighbor told me she had started training her daughter at the age of 6 months. Good thing, she added, since it took two years before she was completely off diapers.

Before the age of about 2 you are not toilet training; the caretaker is simply getting very good at catching.

Specially if you’ve never been in care of a child. One of the biggest differences I see in how laid back new parents are is that: those who grew up taking care of children (older siblings/cousins) are calmer than those who have babysat as teens, who in turn are calmer than those who didn’t even know that newborn babies don’t look like the months-old “newborns” in the movies.

That doesn’t mean the concerns of the last group should be dismissed: babies aren’t the only ones who need to learn what’s normal, what’s acceptable and what’s neither, parents do too. I’ve seen parents who didn’t let their baby sleep because any time he gurgled they picked him up but I also know a family who at one time swore up and down all their children were home (“actually ma’am, I am reasonably sure these two are indeed yours, could you please come look at them?”, said the nice policeman).

Do remember that kids can be TOTALLY different for different people, too. I went to pick my son up from daycare a couple weeks ago (usually I drop off and my husband picks up) and he pulled one of those obnoxious fucking tantrums that almost-three year olds pull every so often, and every damned adult in that building was so shocked. “Wait, was that Farticus?!” He never does it at school, evidently. He barely says no at school. He is a little goddamned angel at school.

<shrug>

That’s just the way they are. Now, I don’t know if yours is normal or not, but he sounds like mine. Should have listened to him this morning - we go near the train overpass on the way to dropoff and he started in with “Train coming! Train coming, Mama!” And I looked and didn’t see a train or evidence of a train. No trainsign. Then I keep going to the street level crossing, because turning under the overpass can be a pain, and guess who was right. “Choo choo train, mama! Train here!” Yeah, you’re right, buddy. Should have listened to you. “Train go bye bye?” God I hope so.

They do obsess very normally about stuff, also. Mine is also very interested in lights. There’s one in Costco that he noticed was “broken” months ago and they still haven’t replaced the bulb. He should probably tell somebody besides me about it.