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Jolie, our almost 3-year old, has been freaking us out with her behavior lately. She has crying fits whenever she is frustrated, even in very minor ways. For example, Grandpa emptied her potty chair today without realizing that she needed to do that (she must do ALL things herself), and felt her wrath descend upon him. Seriously, it's not like he wanted to do it. Yet one thing led to another and attempts to wipe her now running nose and eyes were met with GREATER WRATH. We'll be lucky if he ever helps out again.

She's also been hitting out of anger and frustration lately, even throwing in a bite here and there, much to our horror. It's been a land of time-outs galore, prompting many discussions between my husband and me. Is this three? Is she a brat? Are we doing something wrong?

Some days have just been NOT FUN. Poke your eyes out not fun.

Her aggressive behavior seems to happen close to naps or bedtime. We realize she's probably tired, but even so, we can't let egregious hitting go unanswered. We've vowed to be consistent about that.

We've also realized that her behavior may be largely due to being overtired. Crankiness, irritability, more easily frustrated, impulsiveness....these all are signs that she hasn't been getting enough sleep. Her bedtime had always been around 7:30 pm, but probably for the last several months, this has drifted a bit later to 7:45pm, sometimes 8:00pm. What I didn't know was that small shortchanges in bedtime can accumulate and produce an overtired child.

For the past week (partly out of desperation!), we've moved up dinner time to be able to get her into bed by 7:30pm. We've also moved up lunch earlier to coincide more with her school schedule, where she eats at 11:30pm and naps at 12:30. (We've been lax about naptimes too and in trying to do fun things in the morning with her, usually have her eating closer to 12 and in bed for nap aroun 1pm.)

Being militant about this schedule has helped. Before, sometimes it would take an hour or more to fall asleep for her afternoon nap at home. Sometimes two! This week, she's fallen asleep within about 20 minutes which hasn't happened in AGES. She's been more compliant and happy during the day too. Of course, there's still frustrations but, she has been in more control of her emotiions. We're on a no-hitting streak.

Let's hope it lasts.