Almost 4 DS aggressive with 13 mo DD

[bohemian madre]

As DD has gotten older and is walking and talking, DS is becoming more and more aggessive. Today DD was eating an apple and DS put his foot on it and kept pulling it away and teasing and then threw it behind the cough laughing even though she was crying. He has started pinching, grabbing, moving her around, etc. I have ignored the action and comforted DD and taken out of the situation, told DS that hitting hurts and we don't want to do that, notice that she is crying and pay attention to what she is telling him. We are an attached family dedicated to gentle discipline and we are not perfect. I yelled quite a bit last week but this has been going on before. There has been some rivalry regarding nursing. I am tandem nursing but with extreme time limits. The aggression does not happen all the time but when it does I have a difficult time not protecting my 'young' even from my other young. A lot of the parenting books I have seem to assume I have one child. Suggestions for books? Suggestions in general? Been there?

[clevelandmama]

Not much good advice from me b/c I'm going through the same thing!  I'll be checking back to see how others respond!  Hugs!

[transylvania_mom]

When ds does this to dd, I try to make him empathise. I tell him: oh, it seems you're having so much fun teasing your sister, let me do the same to you! I'll just take the toy you're playing with and throw it to the other side of the room! It would be so much fun, wouldn't it!

Usually it makes ds realise it's not fun to be the one who's teased.

[bohemian madre]

I am trying a waldorf technique of telling a story intstead of calling down a behavior. I have the book Stories for Challenging Behavior (I think that's the title -can't locate it now). I made up my own about the little faries one older and one younger and the younger trying to learn the garden, the older getting impatient and flying into her and hurting her, etc etc. It's too soon to tell if it is having the desired effect but I will keep you posted.

Thanks for the 'hug'!

[abqbabylove]

I am also replying to hopefully read what others have to say, as I am in the same situation. My ODD will be 4 in August, and the baby is 4 months. She seems to wildly vacillate from wanting to hug, hold, and adore the baby to being aggressive towards her. Usually I say, "look at her crying! How do you think she feels?" and then reiterate that we love each other and have to treat each other gently. I say that I would never let anyone hurt her, and that I can't let her hurt the baby either. I tell her that it's okay to feel angry or upset, but that she has to express it differently. I also say that if she feels like she wants to hit her baby sister, she can clap her hands together instead, or jump and down. Sometimes she does this. I don't know.... it's a learning process!
 

Also I wrote a blog post on this called Survival of the Littlest - won't provide solutions, but might give you a laugh!

[clevelandmama]

Maybe we should all take note of the number of "no answers, but going through the same thing" responses - perhaps this is just what life is like with 2 little kids!  Not that we shouldn't be doing everything we can to help them live together more peacefully, but...you know what I mean.

Good luck, Mamas.  I'd love to hear how the story telling technique works out.  Right now I'm just trying to remind myself that my youngest (almost 18 months) is not as fragile as I think and let them work things out themselves more often - only getting involved if/when I have to. 

[umsami]

Did you ever read "Siblings Without Rivalry" by Faber and Mazlish?  One thing that I remember is that they ask Moms.... how they'd feel if their husbands took another wife.  (OK, I need to go get the book so I get it right...)

Imagine that your spouse puts his arms around you, tells you he loves you so much and you're so wonderful, but he's decided to get another wife just like you.  How would you feel?

When the new wife shows up, you see that she's younger than you and very cute.  When you're outside with the new wife, people say "hi" to you...but they gush over the new wife.  Etc.

Sort of gives you a bit of empathy as to what the older kids feel when there's a new baby. :)

Do you have Hilary Flower's book on Tandem Nursing ("Adventures in Tandem Nursing")? It might offer some suggestions.  I had it--but read it years ago and then gave it to a friend.

Could you have a special basket of toys/books/crafts for your older child that could only be used when you're nursing your infant?  Another tactic would be to use that time to talk about how much fun you had nursing your eldest--your special time, etc.  I've noticed that my older kids all like to here stories about how they were special as a baby--especially when I'm paying attention to their little brother.

[mamazee]

It's really common for older siblings to get jealous of new babies because they appear to the older siblings to get all the love and attention. It might seem counter-productive, but what worked for me (and I will disclose first of all that mine are further apart in age so it might have been easier for me to resolve due to that) was to leave the little one with daddy for periods of time - very short periods of time when she was a baby but longer as she got older - and take the older child out so we could do something special just the two of us with no chance of the baby interrupting. She just needed to feel special to me again. At first we just went to a coffee shop for a short while or for a walk around the block together, but we progressed to going to the park together, to the museum, to a movie, etc.

[clevelandmama]

Originally Posted by umsami 

Did you ever read "Siblings Without Rivalry" by Faber and Mazlish?  One thing that I remember is that they ask Moms.... how they'd feel if their husbands took another wife.  (OK, I need to go get the book so I get it right...)

Imagine that your spouse puts his arms around you, tells you he loves you so much and you're so wonderful, but he's decided to get another wife just like you.  How would you feel?

When the new wife shows up, you see that she's younger than you and very cute.  When you're outside with the new wife, people say "hi" to you...but they gush over the new wife.  Etc.

Sort of gives you a bit of empathy as to what the older kids feel when there's a new baby. :)

Do you have Hilary Flower's book on Tandem Nursing ("Adventures in Tandem Nursing")? It might offer some suggestions.  I had it--but read it years ago and then gave it to a friend.

Could you have a special basket of toys/books/crafts for your older child that could only be used when you're nursing your infant?  Another tactic would be to use that time to talk about how much fun you had nursing your eldest--your special time, etc.  I've noticed that my older kids all like to here stories about how they were special as a baby--especially when I'm paying attention to their little brother.

I do remember reading that when DD2 was first born.  It made me cry.  A lot.  After the guilty feelings subsided, however, it did help me to empathize with DD1.  One thing that helped my oldest when DD2 was still little was when I would just say "it's really hard to have a baby sister, isn't it?"...no judgements, no solutions, no "but we have to...", just a statement.

Also, with the nursing, I found my oldest acted out A LOT more the more limits I put on breastfeeding.  When I finally just gave in and let her nurse pretty much whenever she wanted, she quickly stopped asking and went down to once at naptime and once at night.  She's now 3 and 8 months and is all but weaned (still asks like once a month, just to see what I'll say).  Good luck, mama!