From: missy@ntmtv.bnr.ca (Missy Iaquinto)
Subject: Re: Two year old tantrums, vomiting, and bedtime
Organization: Northern Telecom Inc, Mountain View, CA
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 23:53:00 GMT

In article <22682@oasys.dt.navy.mil>, dsegelho@oasys.dt.navy.mil (Diane Segelhorst) writes:

|> First to set the stage:  My son Brad is almost two.  He has always been
|> a very intense little boy, with very intense emotions.  

"Intense" is frequently the way we describe our daughter, now 2 3/4.
Actually the pediatrician first used the word when she was about 1 month
old and colicky - he said she would probably always be that way, and he 
was right!

|> One evening last week Brad had a tantrum over something - [...]
|> After closing his door, having him bang on it crying and
|> going back to put him in bed about four times.  Then he vomited again,
|> though he hadn't been hysterical this time.  [...] At last
|> he fell asleep (two hours after his bedtime).
|> [...] 
|> At four am, he woke up crying for me.  When I went in his room, he wanted
|> me to sit in the rocker again.  He wouldn't fall back asleep.  Eventually,
|> after I tried both laying down with him and sitting in the rocker for
|> over an hour, I just left to go back to bed.    Finally he stayed in bed 
|> and fell asleep. (This was about 5:15)

Man, this is the story of my life with Kayla and bedtime!  Until next March,
she's an only child.  The tantrums, the screaming, the banging on the door,
the stall tactics ... I'm grateful that now it doesn't usually happen more
than twice in one week.  But when it does!  Last week she woke up somewhere
between 3:30 and 4:00 one morning.  Like you, I tried all sorts of things,
lying down with her, sitting in the rocking chair, holding her, talking to 
her, and when nothing worked, I just said, "I'm going back to bed now."
She of course only screamed louder.  After I was up and showered and ready 
to go the next morning, she was still screaming and banging.  When I went 
in to get her, she calmed down INSTANTLY, and said she wanted to go to sleep.
When we got to gramma's (her day-care provider) she slept for several hours.

She doesn't usually vomit, but when she's been crying for a long time, she
does gag and sometimes spit up a bit.  This doesn't sound like what's 
happening with Brad.  The tantrums and stalling tactics are probably normal,
and from someone who deals with them regularly, you're handling them about
as well as you can (the same way I do, anyway).  Sometimes Kayla responds
favorably to "If you continue to [whine/cry/stall/get out of bed], then I 
will have to close the door, otherwise I'll leave it open."  She hates for
the door to be closed, so often she will do what I ask.  If she doesn't,
we just close the door, and endure the screams.  I can usually tell when 
she's ready for me to come in (she will NEVER stop on her own), sometimes
I ask her, and sometimes she tells me.  The whole ordeal never lasts less 
than an hour, though.

I'm hoping and praying that by the time the baby is born (she'll be almost 
3 1/2), she'll have outgrown this, and that the new baby doesn't cause
some sort of new anxiety that causes her to regress, or invent some new 
difficult behavior (dream on, right?).

Anyway, definitely have the vomitting checked out, and just keep managing
the tantrums as best you can - I absolutely believe that you can in no way
PREVENT tantrums - you can only attempt to MANAGE them as they come.

I have no experience (yet) with sibling rivalry, but this doesn't really
sound like the cause of Brad's tantrums to me - sounds like he's just
being an "intense" two year old.

Good luck!

Missy Iaquinto