Soothing Baby’s Frustrations
I’ll Cry If I Want To
Recently, Vincent Hammer put 18-month-old Markus in his high chair and was blindsided by his son’s monster tantrum. “He didn’t want to sit in his high chair,” says Hammer, who lives in northern Vermont. “He screamed for 15 minutes. I finally had to give up and take him out again.” Most parents dread the “terrible 2s,” that foot-stomping age when kids are apt to turn themselves inside out with rage when things don’t go their way. But the thorny truth is that babies experience — and express — frustration long before their second birthday.
When Frustration Sets In
Newborns lead mostly contented lives because we rush to meet their needs at the slightest peep of discomfort. As babies grow older, however, they become increasingly aware of what the world has to offer — and often want what they can’t have. Between the ages of 1 and 2, Eileen Kasten, MD, assistant professor of pediatrics at Boonshoft School of Medicine, in Dayton, Ohio, says “They’re learning to do lots of new things, but they’re not very good at them yet, so they get frustrated easily.”
Taking first steps, for instance, is a major milestone for babies this age. But becoming a biped also has a downside: your child longs to walk, but he falls down a lot so he feels thwarted and ticked off. Just how frustrated your child gets — and how he shows it — depends partly on temperament.
Although it’s exhausting to parent a child whose frustration level hits the boiling point, remember that the emotion is actually a positive force that can drive your child to succeed at new challenges. At the same time, you can also learn to sidestep frustration-induced tantrums before they start.
Use Sign Language
There are few things more irritating than not being understood, says Kate Cronan, MD, coauthor of I’m a Mom! Now What? There are many helpful videos, books, and classes on baby signing, but you don’t have to follow a formal program. “We totally made up our own little signals,” says Laura Costello, mother of 9-month-old Conner, who lives in Weymouth, Massachussetts. “Our older son was very verbal, but he would get upset when he couldn’t express what he needed. On our own, we started teaching him to sign, like showing him how to point at the floor when he wanted to get down out of his high chair.”