What to do with a restless 2 yr old

Lea Lea loves having her brother here, but oh boy, is she a handful. The baby is the easy one, lol. She's not acting any differently than she did before , but now it's harder to keep up with her. The toughest thing is when I'm bfing Xavier and I can't get up to get her. It seems like literally the second I sit down to feed him, she gets into something...like rooting through the garbage, dumping out her juice or playing with her food, dumping her crayons all over the floor and refusing to clean them up....etc...it's becoming so hard to enforce anything because I can't actually get up and do anything. I really don't know what to do. All I have been able to do it yell, and I hate that. That, and it only works for so long until she decides to just not listen to me anymore.

 

i'd recommend doing some basic disciplinary groundwork so she will listen to you and obey. basic principles of behavioral modification can be very helpful. using them you can increase the desirable behavior and decrease the undesirable behavior. i know it might sound cold, but it works very well with young children. all parents unwittingly modify their children's behavior to create behavior problems through reinforcement of the wrong things until they learn how this works. i had two 17 months apart myself, so i know they are a handlful. until i learned the principles of reinforcement theory, my first was a total spoiled monster. there's lots of info on the web about it, such as this link.

http://www.webehave.com/behavior.htm

beats the hell out of yelling at them and hitting them.