Two Year Old Drastically Changing Behavior

Do any of you have a two year old that has suddenly had a drastic change in behavior? My little guy is 2 1/2, and gives me so much more trouble than usual. I have heard of the terrible twos, but from prior experience I thought it actually hit closer to 3. 😉

My little guy screams most nights at bedtime. He shares a room with his six month old brother, so it’s really hard to put him in his crib to cry/scream it out. I try to cuddle and rock him to relax him, but he just yells “Let go me!”. I want to soothe him, and find out what is setting him off, but he won’t tell me. I’m not sure if he even knows why he’s fighting bedtime. We all go to bed together, so it’s not like he thinks he’s missing out on fun times by going to bed. I just don’t understand. 😦

 He also fights diaper changes. He will kick and roll. It becomes extremely difficult to get a diaper off (without making a big mess…depending on the contents), or on. My 11 year old has the hardest time trying to diaper his brother. I need him to help at times when I am nursing the baby though. I have tried to get him to use the potty which would eliminate diaper changes, but he really doesn’t want to try it yet. He has sat on it a few times, but hasn’t used it yet. I remind him nearly every time he fights the diaper changes, that the toilet is another option for him, but he just says “No toilet!”.

I refer to this child as my monster, because he really can be one. He hits his older brother, throws toys, tells everyone to shut up and loves to tell us no. He has always been more difficult than my first child, but this is getting ridiculous!

He has his sweet side too, where he’ll cuddle and tell us he loves us. He’ll even share toys with both of his brothers sometimes. 

For the bedtime fight, I’m thinking of trying to implement a bedtime routine to get him to relax. I know other people do this, but we’ve never been routine people. It might be hard for me to stick with it. It used to be easy to get him to bed, because we would put a movie in for him. He would either quietly watch it or fall asleep within a few minutes and we’d turn it off. I wish I could just get into his head to understand why he gets so worked up.

For the diaper changes I am stumped. I don’t want to force him onto the potty, and make going traumatic for him. I guess it’s already a bit traumatic since he fights the changes so much. 

I know this is a very temporary stage in life, so I won’t let it stress me out too much. 😛