My daughter is 2.5 years old. When asking for things like "I want more water in the bottle" she used to ask nicely and even with "please" occasionally. All good and dandy.
Since her brother was born a month ago she always whine while asking for those things, no matter how small or trivial. She would still say the same words but accompanied with whine or cry.
I can see where it's coming from: her baby brother is getting more attention by crying but that doesn't help us.
We tried the following things:
- Ignore the whining and do her request. That of course failed.
- Kindly explain to her "no need to whine, you can ask nicely without crying". This help for one time only, and later she do the same again.
- Refuse her request on purpose and explain "we don't understand when you say it like this" waiting for her to ask nicely. Same as the previous step, she will ask nicely once then forget all about it.
Is there anything else we can do?