The terrible threenager year begins

I was really hoping that as we’d missed the terrible twos we might continue to have a really cheery little boy.  Boy, how wrong was I!

Ok, so generally N is still a happy little boy, but the last couple of weeks, just as he’s turned 3, we’ve have him turn like Jekyll and Hyde.

I think (hope and pray) that it’s going to be a short phase and that he’s just becoming more independent and wanting to test boundaries, but it’s definitely testing my patience. The OH has a lot less impatience for soft discipline and letting things go that don’t matter in the grand scheme of things so I can see some explosions soon.

There’s been 2 big occasions that are testing my patience.  Major personality changes.  The first is nursery.

N loves both of his nurseries.  He’s been at the day nursery for 2 years now so is part of the furniture there.  He’s just moved up a room but from the beginning we’ve never had problems with him not wanting to go or clinging to me when we arrive in the morning.  But some days over the last fortnight he’s moaned before we leave the house,

‘Don’t want to go to nursery’

‘Want to go to Shenington’ (his nursery school he does 2 days – pleased he likes it but very annoying)

‘Want to stay at home with you’.  Not much good as I work full time and you’ll be at home alone.

Then we arrive and I get him holding my hand and not letting go, not wanting to take his coat off, taking me through to breakfast room but not wanting me to go.  Arrgghh.  I’ve never had to deal with this before.  Luckily the staff recognise that usually if they pick him up and they watch me out of the window it seems to be fine.  Of course, he’s perfectly happy there once he’s there and talks about what he’s done at home.

So I can kind of deal with his moans about nursery.  Because let’s face it, we all feel a bit like that at having to go back to work on a Monday, so why shouldn’t he about nursery.

Swimming on the other hand was a bit of a disaster this week.  After a year of water wobbles from around 9 months old, we’d come out the other side and he’s really been progressing with his love of swimming.  He looks forward to going in the morning, and tells everyone he sees he’s going swimming.

But the last 2 weeks have gone to pots once we’ve arrived (this week, the tears and no’s started before we’d got out of the car).  Moaning and crying, shouting ‘No swimming, don’t want to go swimming, want to go home’.

I’ve got him out of the car to the changing room, and he moans again trying to keep his clothes on while I try and get him changed.  2 weeks ago, at least he stopped crying and was fine as soon as his clothes were on.  But this week this all continued until half way through the lesson.  To say our teacher was surprised was an understatement given N’s usually the chattiest one there, talking all through the lesson and on the whole joining in with everything.

His favourite activity, simple swimming with the woggle, was spent with him refusing to kick and therefore just drifting down the pool, along with moaning and griping.  He did cheer up later on in the lesson and ended off doing quite well, but there’s no explanation for it.

I tried to calm him by asking why he didn’t want to go swimming, and what was wrong.  Was anything poorly?  No answer, just ‘don’t want to go swimming’.  In my book, if there’s no reason, then he’s going.  I’m wondering what next week will be like given it’s got worse over the 2 weeks.  I’m hoping his Gran will come along and watch as he’s quite keen for her to do that.  Maybe that will improve his behaviour.

How’ve you solved any ‘I don’t want to’ issues?  How long did the phase last (please tell me only a couple of weeks)?