Use your Words

More and more lately and ALL NIGHT tonight Esme has been having screaming fests at me because she wants something and won't tell me clearly what it is - trying to drag or force me to do something using gestures and pulling on me and won't even stop screaming to listen to me. She also wants to hit me in the high points of these to make me do what she wants -- and I'm NOT letting her get the idea that is OK. Often we just put her to bed when she gets like this - but it hasn't been fixing the cause of the issue - her not communicating what she wants.

Tonight I took her down in my lap when she was getting into one of these tantrums and held her there screaming her head off until she quieted down some - then told her I wanted her to use her words and tell me what she wanted - like if she wanted the ball (which she motioned at halfway through as a 'let me out of this' distraction technique) she should say she wants the ball - 'ball, I want the ball - you have to tell Mom this, no AAHWHWHW (mimic whining cry) say 'ball' - you say ball' etc... and then I let her go. She was happy to just be 'free' again and talked to me a lot about the ball - blue ball etc etc... and then she wanted to hug me, but was afraid I'd hold on to her again - so I asked 'hug?' and she beamed -- came and hugged me and then grabbed the ball again. She said 'hug' twice more and hugged me. Then we had a discussion about going upstairs, yea?, see daddy and sit in our night-night watch Shaun the Sheep? She didn't want to go upstairs at first, and then she thought about it - and asked 'baa?' I said 'yes if you sit in your night-night (bed) you can watch Shaun the Sheep, but we have to go upstairs for that - are you ready to go upstairs?' etc etc... using MY words - and she came sat in my lap and said 'baa' - so yes she wanted to go upstairs. Upstairs I asked Daddy to put on the movie and she was extremely good - I put her in her pajamas with hardly any complaint, put her in her bed and she didn't start screaming immediately etc etc.. she just sat and watched Shaun and then was asleep in about fifteen minutes.

It sounds like she took the 'use your words' session to heart - and I hope I don't have to do another one tomorrow -- but ignoring the crying isn't working - putting her to bed is only a temporary fix and I'd like to have have a night now and then I'm not screamed at (every minute I'm not catering to her) from the moment I come home until she is asleep -- they're getting rare lately and I have to turn that around!