knocking over siblings

[Honey693]

DD1 (2.5) has started knocking over her 7 month old sister. I have no idea why she does this, it just come out of the blue. All three of us will be reading a book or playing and *bam* DD! just shoves her over. I'm at my wit's end and I have no idea what to do. She knows it's wrong b/c she'll knock her over, laugh, say I hurt DD2 and then give her a kiss to make it better. Any ideas?

[Just1More]

Sometimes I think at this age it isn't so much that they "know what they did", but that they know what happens next.  She knows that you will say that she hurt her, and then have her kiss her or whatever.  I'd guess it's a game to her, in a way.  (Not morbid, just a cause and effect thing.)  I would recommend being careful not to play into that.  What do you do when she knocks the baby over?  Is it exciting?  Does she get an individual attention at all?  It's really easy to think that it's not attention based because it is out of blue, but often, I've found with my kids, that there are cues I am missing. 

I've also had a lot of success with cutting out all the "be nice" talks, and just saying, "You may not knock your sister over."  I've had 2 2yos be pretty aggressive with one of my kids, and finally saying, "You may not..." ended it.  It was like they thought they could and we'd do this whole "be sorry routine." 

[muslimahmama]

My 3 year old boy does this to his 6 month old brother. FOR NO REASON. For instance.. baby is playing on the floor with a toy. Big boy is just walking around..not doing anything. Walks over, pushes baby down. Baby cries. I go and pick the baby up, kiss him and cuddle him. I try not to say anything to the big boy about it right then. I tell the baby stuff like "I am so sorry big brother hurt you, you're okay sweetie.. " etc.

3 year old smiles and covers his mouth, looking pleased. Sometimes he pushes the baby down or hits him on the head.. not hard at all. Then he'll kiss him and say "sorry brudder" and tell me "it's okay because I said sorry" then I will explain.. it is NEVER okay to hurt anyone, if we do it on accident then we say sorry, but we don't do it on purpose.

I guess I try not to make a big deal about it.. because then he might start doing it for attention. I think it would just make it worse. It hurts my feelings though. The baby doesn't get HURT, but I think it hurts HIS feelings too.. like, "why is my big brother trying to hurt me?!"

[muslimahmama]

I wanted to add.. I set up the playpen in the living room today, partly because the older boy keeps pushing the baby down, and partly because the baby just learned to crawl and keeps smacking his head on the wall and getting stuff under furniture.. he pulled a folding chair onto himself the other day and got a shiner.

I am going to start putting the baby in the playpen whenever I am not able to supervise. Like when I go into the bathroom or other room for a few minutes or am working in the kitchen.

I don't like to restrain the baby in a container, but it's for his own safety and he seemed to like it today!

[Chloe'sMama]

I pick up DD2 and walk away.  I tried getting her to understand that it was not nice, but now I just pick up the baby and walk away.  I don't give an explanation anymore.  It has decreased the incidences, but DD1 still pushes and hits sometimes.