Help! Whining Toddler!

[prudies]

I did a search for this but didn't find anything specific. My DS Elliott is 16 months and has started whining a lot. He'll either whine "ehhhhhhhh" or "pleaaaaaaaase" over and over. He knows quite a bit of words too, but for whatever reason, when he wants to whine he won't use them.

Anyone have any advice? I've tried saying "use your words" and "please stop whining" but that doesn't seem to work. Should I just ignore it and not say anything?

[mom_to_zoe]

This is so very common among toddlers. I think everyone deals with it at some point. The only thing we did, and it did work after a while, was to say every time Zoe whined, "Zoe, I don't understand you when you whine. Please use your nice voice." It's just one of those things you have to do 25 times before you see any results. I also would try to remember to praise her for not whining.

[LeighW]

My DD is 2.5, and now we say "use words" and "please don't whine. We can't hear you when you use your whiny voice."

We also said them when she was younger, more your DS' age, but they did not appear to make a difference. At that age, ignoring her was more effective. She would eventually get it and ask nicely for whatever she wanted. Then we would praise her enthusiastically.

Good luck!

[Adam's Pi]

No advice to give, but I'm right there with ya, hoping that someone has good advice! Thanks for posting this question.

[1_mommy]

leighw-- we do the same thing with dd. she is 2. when she starts her whining i will tell her to use her big girl voice, or ask her to use her words. sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't

the whining does get old really fast!!

[Renrel]

It is tough,and all toddler go through some of this, it is developmental, but pretty much all you can do I think is
1) not respond to whining, either by giving into what they want or losing your temper, as both of these reactions can encourage the behavior;
2) explain calmly what your child needs to do for you to hear him/her;
3) Leave the area if you child will not stop, so that you don't lose it;
4)real listen and pay attentionwhen they are talking to you in a nice voice (It can be as easy to ignore that nice voice when you are busy or involved in your own stuff and your toddler wants your attention for the 1000th time that day;
5) Give lots of specfic praise when you child speaks to you in a proper voice. Not just, "good girl" or "I love you" but more like "It is so nice when you use that big girl voice to speak to me. I can hear you so much better. When I hear you I can give you what you want and that makes us both happy. Thank you so much. MMM Come give my a big hug and kiss."
6) you could try time outs but I have no experience with that. I hear some moms have success with them starting around 18 months;
7) counting to 3 and leaving the room or giving a time out if the behavior does not stop before then.

[knzbound]

No good advice other than to NOT to what I did one day when the whining was intolerable...I growled "Please stop whining!" to which DD promptly responded, "Whine, whine, whine, whine," adding a new word to her vocabulary! ;)

I can't believe E is already 16 mos. and a toddler!

[dzmattie]

DS has started whining once in awhile - I said "no moaning" and since then when he starts I say "what do we say?" and he says "no moanin' mama" - it makes him stop - probably wouldn't read this approach in the parenting books but it works for us (and is kind of funny too :). We also say - use your words....good luck

[Katie]

I'm a therapist and this is what I tell my parents to do - as others have said, you will have to remind your child each time he whines, but it is effective. What I tell parents is to say (in the most neutral tone possible) "Oops, that's your whiney voice, I can't talk to you until you use your big boy voice." Then ignore him until he uses a normal tone of voice at that point praise him and say, "Thank you for using your big boy voice, now I can talk to you." As you do this more and more you can shorten it to just reminding them by saying, "Oops, that's your whiney voice" and "Thank your for using your big boy voice".

[Jaycee]

2 words. duct tape.


j/k :D

I'm sorry you are going through this. Just reading along to see what I get to look foward to :)

[lisariv]

No help, but loads of empathy! My DD is the same age as your son prudies. She has very few words, if you can even call them that. She often uses those appropriately, but she whines/hollers when she wants something. We just get long, loud, repeated, "ehhhhhhhh" or "aaaaahhhhh" or "eeeeeee", (you get the picture).

I'm reading everyone's advice and I just don't know if something like "use your big girl voice" is going to work. Wouldn't she need to have words to use her big girl voice? Maybe I'm missing something with this advice. But, I'm guessing she does this because she's frustrated and just doesn't have the words she needs yet. We do some sign language and that helps a lot, but the whining is enough to just drive DH and me up the wall!

[Renrel]

lisariv - I can sympathize with the lack of word issue. That certainly makes the problem even harder to deal with. I would guess you need to figure out how your child does communicate with you when he/she is not whining and find a word to describe that. Show me, sigh me, whatever and repeatedly remind him/her that that is the correct way to communicate. I read about one mom who made her child flash card things with pictures of the things he ate or did. The child learned to find or point to the picture of what he wanted to communicate with her until he actually had the words. I think the concept to dealing with the issue though remains the same - avoid the need to whine by giving attention without the whine, giving an alternative to whining, and not letting the whine be effective. It is just much harder to apply the concept when the child has a less effective other means of communicating.

[prudies]

Elliott has quite a bit of words, but apparently not the right ones! It's like he can't express his frustration. He just says "pleaaaaaase" and I'm like, "please what?" But he won't answer. I usually say "use your words" but I'm not sure if he's getting it. I'll stick with it though, and I appreciate all the advice!:)