I've been nannying "Silly" (2.75F) and "Sunny" (8moF) for a little over a year now, and Silly's behavior has got me feeling EXHAUSTED. Everything we do during the day feels like a struggle. There are times when she's sweet, pleasant to be around, etc, but (and I feel bad saying this) it is feeling lately like those times are fewer and more far between. Her main "issues" are with independence, following directions, sleep, mealtimes, and more recently, aggression toward her baby sister.

Silly won't play on her own/without input ("wow, cool tower!") for more than 2-5 minutes... if she feels she isn't getting enough attention she either parks herself in my lap/hangs all over me or she tries getting negative attention by yelling, banging/throwing things, or doing something she knows is off limits. Sunny is getting older and more mobile - therefore requiring more of my attention- and the situation is getting worse. Now if the baby is getting more attention than Silly is, she becomes aggressive. .. she's hit (with hands and objects), pushed, and prodded her sister, as well as poked her in the eye and crushed her fingers under toys. I've been giving immediate timeouts for violence, but it only seems to work for a few days until she's at it again.

As far as listening goes, about 2/3 of the time Silly is asked to do or stop doing something, she is defiant. She either completely ignores me or talks back ("but I want to", "it's not time for nap, it's time to play" "daddy let's me"). It's a HUGE chore to get her to clean up her toys... I normally end up coaching her through putting away each item and half of the time I just do it myself so I don't have to deal with making her do it.

Getting Silly down to nap is a nightmare too - she is the type of kid who fights sleep even though she clearly needs it. If she starts to fall asleep she will fidget, sing/talk, bite her nails... whatever it takes to stay awake. She will be yawning and visibly exhausted as she does this, and if she doesn't nap she is unbearably cranky. She "needs" to be either held & rocked or patted to sleep. At night she sleeps with her dad who gives her a full 8 Oz bottle (yes, a bottle), plays and talks with her until she passes out. Her bedtime is at 9, but I suspect she isn't falling asleep until 10 or later. For the past few days it's become impossible to sit with her for 15 min as she falls asleep because the baby is transitioning from 3 to 2 naps, and she isn't sleeping while silly goes down anymore. I've had to put her in bed, sit with her for a few minutes, and leave to tend to the baby (who will only tolerate 5-10 min alone in her playpen). I come back to check on and comfort her after about 10 minutes. She screams for her dad the whole time I'm gone, and will generally fall asleep after 2-3 "cycles", while I'm in the room. I'm hoping she'll learn to go to sleep on her own and be OK in bed by herself soon. She also wakes up screaming and clingy every day.

At mealtimes Silly will eat a few bites on her own and refuse to eat any more - to get her to to take more bites I have to turn off the pause the music we're listening to and turn it back on when she takes another bite, amongst other things. She also pockets food in her cheeks and will keep it there for up to 20 min if you let her leave the table with it (I don't, MB does). If she was my kid I'd let her eat as much as she wanted and let her be hungry until the next meal, but MB is very concerned about what she eats and clearly doesn't want to do that. I write down everything Silly eats for MB each day. She has seen a speech therapist for feeding and while she does have some weakness in her jaw it had been concluded that her issues are mainly behavioral, and she will not qualifyfor early intervention services.

In my opinion, this is all stemming from a lack of disipline from MB and (especially) DB. With DB she is pretty much allowed to do/have whatever she wants as long as she isn't setting herself on fire, and MB tries but just isn't consistent and gives in very often.

Sorry for the super long post, I had a lot to get off my chest!! Thankfully Sunny is low maintenence and Silly will be starting half day preschool soon, otherwise I don't know if I could keep working with this NF.

Any advice is very welcome!

Sorry for typos, not sure how to edit :/