J is 3yr3mo. She is still a terror most of the time. We have good days & bad days. It was like the DAY she turned 3, it went south. But then now, some days she will be so sweet & play so well with her little brother while other days she refuses to play right or share & spends the day trying to do things she shouldn't. Our best form of "punishment" is to put her in her room until she calms down. She HATES being put in her room, but that has been the tantrum place for now. Seems to work. She can calm down, we can calm down, then we talk about it.

My whole family was yellers, so I have to actively try not to, but it's my fall back. I don't spank(often) and when I do it's a single get-your-attention pop, but I yell. I yell up the stairs rather than go up and get them/stop them fighting. I yell when I reach the end of my rope. Unfortunately/fortunately(??) my kids know I'm all bluster. But it seems the only time they pay attention is yelling. I'm getting better about yelling and learning more patience. And thus far other than lots of crying my hormones haven't shortened my fuse.. Most of the time I yell when I've repeated myself 300 times.

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Gavin is a loud, loud child. DH is loud too, so I should have expected it. I feel like I'm constantly yelling to even be heard over him, and I hate it. On good days, I can keep his volume down low enough that I'm not shouting for him to pay attention, but they're rare. He gets excited/tired and his volume rockets. Then, T starts crying, and G starts asking "why" T is crying ("BECAUSE YOU'RE BEING TOO LOUD!"). That's typically how it begins. I regularly change the room we're in just to walk out of G's scream-fests.

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J is 10 times worst when she is tired. Does anyone else have a toddler that gets up "with the daylight"? Seriously, 6am, the first peep of daylight, she shouts "It's day morning!" And the day starts for us. No matter what time we go to bed, it's early morning for us.

And to make matters worse, she has taught our 1 year old how to scream while he is playing/crawling. Sometimes I feel like I live in a zoo or a circus.

My oldest still is loud. She doesn't have a quiet setting. She talks loud, sleeps loud, and if she gets excited it sounds like she's shouting, but she isn't. She's JUST LOUD! She even whispers loud.

ETA: She even had a really loud cry when she was an infant. Thankfully DS had a pretty quiet cry and is fairly quiet now. Two loud kids may have sent me to the looney bin!

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DS is way louder than DD-and he is only one. Commit me now, folks!

Yes, I think being pregnant and hormonal has a lot to do with the yelling over her. I have a lot less patients while pregnant than normally. LOL I have started doing better, because I just don't have the energy lately to yell at her. LOL Plus I am trying to get her to be quieter in the house. So yelling at her is really counter productive to getting her to quiet down.

ETA~ Some how I missed a whole page of replies! Wow I am tired.

K is really loud sometimes, but super quiet others. When I ask her to be louder because I can't hear her she will get softer, and if I ask her to quiet down she will get louder. She is also a screamer. If you tickle her she squeals and screams, or if something startles her she does the same.

I so totally hate repeating myself. The other day I had all the dirty clothes in piles on the laundry room floor and she started mixing up the piles. I was saying "no no no no no no........" (I was sitting on the toilet going pee like always)

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Benny and Shan March 30th 2002