My son went through a whiney stage when he was 4 or 5. It was short lived. I know listening to the whining gets under your nerves real quick and the first thing you want to do is just find somthing, anything that will make them stop. But you have to be careful because they begin to notice that if they whine that it is one way they get you to give them what they want. I use to make my son go in his room and whine all he wanted. I told him that when he comes out that he must be done and only then I would attend to him. He figured it out eventually that it was not gona work. I do have to say that girls are so much more emotional. My BF has a daughter and her whining turns into crying and the more he coddles her the more it continues. It does come across as bratty to me. She is six. I told her that when she does this he needs to send her to her room and make her come out with a new attitude. She normally does it for her Dad's attention. She also knows how much it pisses me off. She cant seem to play by herself and or self sooth herself. Now here is the interesting thing. When she is with me and he is at work, she will color and find things to entertain herself. When her Dad is home she will not play with anything. She will not do the whining with me but does it always with her dad. I think its cause she knows that I will not tolerate it and she has Daddy manipulated so he does tolerate it. She goes as far as to make him think she is in pain. Always needing ice packs.Saying her legs hurt or her knees hurt. Im sorry but at that age NOTHING should hurt. Its amazing how as soon as the ice pack goes on the spot that is hurting supposedly. The whining stops like its a maricale OMG the child has been healed!!!! You say that you guys have her for 3 months then she goes to the Mother for 3 months?? That can not be good for the child. You may want to go with a more consistant schedual for the kid. Maybe take her half the week and the other half she is with the mom. Or every other week. We do the half week. It works out good. I notice its not so stressful on the child. Hang in there. And your feelings are normal.

My step daughter was like that when she was three years old...I would just kindly tell her that I would like to help her but I can't understand her when she crys and doesn't use her big girl voice...After tell her that I would ignore the whinning, crying, and drama until she stopped and asked for what she wanted. Worked like a charm when she was little...Now that she is a spoiled brat 15 year old it doesn't work so well...lol

My step daughter was like that when she was 4/5. And I hated it. Nothing made me more upset, I swear I would feel by blood start to boil when she would whine/cry.
I am a very tough woman raised sandwiched between two brothers, and if I cried, I would never have heard the end of it. Not so much with my SD.

What I had to do was be proactive. I would send her to her room to cry, and once she was done crying, and ONLY if she was done crying could she come out. I would take things away and not return them until she got a hold of herself. I would leave the room, close the door, and let her cry it out. I guess the bottom line was I would not put up with her crying at all. I would not listen to it, and I would not allow anyone else to listen either. It was her crying all alone, and that was not getting the reponse that she wanted. She wanted the attention, and she wasnt getting it anymore.

The walk away method was amazing. I would simply tell her I will not listen to her crying anymore. Come find me when you are done, and I would leave and close the door. It helped me get a grasp on my emotions, and let her cry out her.

I'm not talking about if she was hurt or something, I am talking about her not wanting to get dressed in the morning, brush her teeth, get her hair done, put her shoes on.... I'm talking this girl would cry about EVERYTHING. She would cry if her brother got dressed before her, if he looked at her in the morning, for ANYTHING. So this was my solution and it worked.

This is what I did last year. They are coming back the end of this month to live with us full time (their mother lives across the country and couldnt handle it) so I do not know what it will be like when they get back this time, or how far they have regressed because the BM lets her cry and get her way. We shall see.

I have a 2 (3 in July) year old step daughter and a 10 month old daughter. I'm a younger mom, age 21. We get her every other 2 weeks. I alaso agree going back and forth confuses her, but she has seemed to adjust to it. My step daughter does the same things. She'll throw fits over nothing, When I ask her to do something, She'll cry, When she doesn't want to eat what I cooked she'll just sit there n cry. Even though the last time we had her she was an angel, wanting to help out with everything, listening everytime she was told to do something, like pick up her toys, leaving the animals alnone, etc. She gets on my nerves all the time and mine and my husbands relationship will sometimes suffer because of this. However, I've come to realize that I expect her to grow up faster than she can. (doesn't help that she looks older than a 6 year old.) She's at the stage, like most 2-3 year olds, that they are trying to be independant but still want to be a baby. Especially since we have a younger one, she gets jealous. Just be persistant and understanding. She's still a baby. She crys like she does cuz she wants attention. I, for one, don't wanna baby any child to the point they become panzees n expect mama to take care of them forever, but everyone wants to be loved. When she crys, hold her n let her be a baby fora minute. She should get over the fit a lot quicker and listen a lot better if she feels you're "on her side" vs. enforcing rules all the time. This has proven to work with my step daughter, letting her be a baby sometimes, but not letting her forget that she's a big girl.
I totally speak from experience, and every kid is different. I, myself, am still learning. I hope something I have said helps someone, I know I feel lost sometimes when no one understands what I'm going through.