Advice on handling toddler and 8-month-old interactions?

[SamanthaTO]

I LOVE Mothering Magazine but have never participated in these forums. In fact, I registered specifically to ask this question. I apologize if this isn't the place...lemme know these things since I'm so new!

Anyway, my family (myself, my husband, our 2-year-old, baby due at the end of July) lives in a triplex with my mother and my brother and his family (his wife and their 8-month-old daughter), each with our own separate apartments. We all believe strongly in homebirthing, attachment parenting/continuum parenting, etc. Needless to say, we're all around each other a lot, and my son considers his aunt, uncle, and cousin to be more like another mother, father, and sibling.

Since my niece was born, we've experienced what we expected from my son, lots of love and some randomly placed experimental smacks or pokes or pinches. We've done what we do in every other case when he's doing something he shouldn't do...look him in the eyes and talk to him about it. But this has been going on for 8 months now! He LOVES his cousin, but will try to climb on top of her or sit on her or push her. At this point, when it begins to happen, anyone and everyone in the room will all gently let him know to stop, but I'm starting to feel that A)it's not working and B)it's making him feel jumped on every single time he goes to interact with his cousin.
We're expecting our second baby so soon and I don't want my son's life to turn into just being told to stop all the time! I'm sure some pregnancy emotions are playing into this, but it breaks my heart to hear over and over again while he's with his cousin, "Abel!! Don't do that! It hurts her!" or "Abel! If she pushes you away she wants you to stop."
Maybe this is the only way to gently remind him, maybe we should pull him aside for a few minutes when this happens, to sit with us? My biggest worry about having another child right now is that my son's life will become a constant battery of verbal instruction on all the things he should STOP DOING.

Any gentle, natural, attachment-oriented toddler advice would be much appreciated!

[EzzysMom]

It's tough, they need a lot of reminders sometimes. I'd make sure someone is sitting closer to the baby though and physically intercepting these things, sometimes you can just move him rather than having to potentially embarass him by saying it outloud? Tell him what he should do too, and model it. 'touch gently' and have him pat. 'tickle her feet', etc. If he keeps doing it despite being told not to, yes I'd remove him from her and move him elsewhere. Also try to look at what can be triggering it to help figure out how to stop it. Is he being ignored for .5 seconds? Is he hungry?

[SamanthaTO]

Thanks. That's a good idea, to be able to just separate things rather than having to vocalize it every single time.

I should also mention that people consider him to be rather "advanced" for his age verbally so some of the stuff he says about it sounds like it's coming from a 4-year-old...which makes it harder sometimes to remember that he IS still two emotionally. But we do have to talk to him like an adult or I'd feel like was talking down to him. He'll respond sometimes with, "But I was just trying to help her to crawl" or "I just wanted to show her to slow down".

Also, yes, it definitely happens more when he's hungry or tired.