[HappyMomAnna]

They say that the hardest age for placement might actually be the toddleres.... And that is for so many of the reasons you seem to be facing...

First of all we cannot actually explain to them what the heck just happened....and they cannot tell us how they are feeling about us or what has just happened. There is no reasonable way to communicate with a little guy who has had his whole life turned upside down.

He may be missing something as silly as a teddy bear--or hearing a cetain phrase that he heard in his former life. Our little boy is very 'pattern' orinted and sometime he has a fit for them most silly reason. He is 27 months old and still gets his before bed bottle...which I have been trying to cut out....But, everynight when big sissy goes to bed he has a fit and wants what he wants...it is a small piece of his security. I may have to find a new ritural...perhaps this summer allowing sissy to stay up later then he does in order to break his routine.

Secondly, personality and temperment are often very different between even biological children. I would have never had another baby had I had my oldest daughter as the first child...I was spoiled by her wonderful brother who was the easiest baby on earth and then she came along....If I had had her first I would have stopped right there.

There are some trick to getting a little one to accept the attachment things. One thing we did with out little boy when he was placed is to sit on the kitchen floor and spoon feed him ice cream.... eye contact and non threatening situations led to closer and closer contact...Now he jumps inot our laps and is ready to be held while he gets his bites of ice cream.... They say there might be something with Lactose that helps the brian build connections which help with attachment....that is why we are happy to let him have a few bites on our terms.

It has to be very upsetting to have our whole world change and not understand why? Time and effort on the parents part can build these bonds with a toddler....