Seven year gap between kids, I could use some tips.

[CrazyCatLady]

I have a seven year old girl and a four month old girl.  I was told over and over again how "wonderful" it would be "because the seven year old can do so much to help you!"  Well, that is just not the case lol.  My seven year old has some special needs and to top it off, is just not really interested in her sister right now. 

I'm struggling with balancing both of their needs.  It seems like the baby is either spending too much time on a play mat or in a bouncy seat while I do things with the seven year old.  Or the seven year old is watching tv or playing computer games while I tend to the screaming baby.  I do put the baby in the ergo a lot, but it limits my mobility and the baby doesn't love it anyways.

How do you experienced parents balance the needs of two kids that are in such radically different developmental stages?  Is there something I'm missing?  Or should I just expect it to be difficult? 

[Peony]

 It is just hard. No real words of wisdom because it sucks in my house as well. You aren't missing anything, this is more or less how it is. My oldest is 8, 9 in a couple weeks, and yeah, what you described sums up our life. Except my 4 month doesn't every really go down, he has to be held all the time. I had sit on the couch and read a couple pages of a book to DD1 and he starts screaming so we will switch to her watching TV and I pacing around with screaming baby. DD1 HATES riding in the car with me right now because I make her sit next to the screaming baby in an attempt to make him scream less. I'll take her to a movie and then end up outside pacing around with baby. I guess everything we do out is me driving her somewhere and then she is by herself while I deal with baby. We go swimming and I can't swim with her so I stand out and watch. 

I try to plan around baby's not so fussy times or when he might go to sleep. He sleeps in my ergo only so I will bounce him to sleep and then start making cookies with her, we might finish or we might have to wait until later. DD1 is used to it by now since there is 2 other kids in the middle, I don't know if she understand that this isn't how life always is... I do end up with her and just the baby a lot. She does her sports so I either take her and drag the baby along or when she is home, I take her and and the baby again and DH takes the two middle kids and spends time with them. 

DD1 and DS1 are 6, I guess almost 6.5, years apart, he is 2.5 now. They still are in such different places. She will play with him a little here and there, but mainly just wants him to leave her and her stuff alone. He likes to tear her room apart if he gets in there.  He adores her and will follow her around asking her to play with him and he will let her do things for him that he will not allow his older but younger then DD1 other sister to do. There are two places in town I can take the two of them and they will both have fun, the pool and the kid museum, other then that she wants to hang out with her friends and well, he is a toddler and doesn't hang out! That is the biggest reason that we spilt the kids up so much, I can do more with this baby attached to my front with DD1 then I can if I bring the toddler along. It does get easier, in several years when the youngest is old enough to be dragged along easier with the oldest. Until then it is more about surviving, or least it is this way in my house. 

[momof3tobe]

My oldest ds is 7 and then I have another ds whose 6 and a six month dd. I give the boys little "jobs" like watching her for 5 minutes in the living room while I do something in the kitchen and I pay them a quarter to keep her from crying. They will dance around and sing and act silly and she will laugh so much! Once they saw that they were able to make her laugh they were all over her- wanting to "baby sit" or hold her on their lap- and getting a little something to put in their piggy banks didn't hurt. I also set up her bedtime at 7pm so I would have an hour with the boys at the end of the night to read and snuggle before they went to bed. Sometimes that means keeping her awake so she won't take a late nap but it's important to me to have that time with the boys so she just has to deal!

[bandgeek]

I don't have a baby, but a have a DS who will be 7 in a month and a disabled 4 year old DD, who physically functions like a newborn.  The truth is, I DO have to divide my time a lot!  There are times I stick my DD in front of the ipad to watch a video and times DS gets ignored while I tend to DD.  I do try to avoid that.  Sometimes I just hold DD on my lap while I play a board game with DS, or while we do schoolwork. 

They can't play like typical siblings.  I always hear how great it is to have more than one, that way they can entertain each other...not so with my kids.  If DD needs attention and I'm cooking, I'll tell DS to go talk with her or play with her for a minute and he'll either ignore me, or walk in, jiggle her hand for a second, then walk back out.  He doesn't "get" how to help his sister yet.  I'm hoping it will get better as he gets older though, as she's not going to progress developmentally and I could use the help!

One thing I've been doing, very recently, is I've started having DS bathe himself while I put DD to bed.  I can hear him in the bathroom, which is right next door to her room, and it's getting 2 things done at once.  He mostly just needs help washing his hair now.

Mostly though, I encourage DS to play by himself and he has one friend that I allow over at pretty much anytime (they play well together and don't destroy the house).  DD needs me more, physically, and DS is old enough to entertain himself.  I'm *available* to him, but I decided long ago I'm not my kid's playmate.  I'll play a board game, read to him, do crafts, etc, but I don't get on the floor and play for hours.  My parents never did that with me and I turned out fine. LOL

He's not yet capable of making his own food and drinks, so I keep some single serve stuff like chocolate milks and applesauce cups in the fridge so if I'm busy he can grab one until I can get up to get him a proper meal or snack.  There are times DD has issues that cause her to scream, much like a colicky baby would, for hours at a time (although we got to the point we started knocking her out with meds, so more like 30 minutes at a time, so I do have that advantage over those with a truly colicky baby).  Those are the worst times though because I'm not even *mentally* available to DS...we get through it though.

[chel]

I have a slightly larger gap.  Mine are almost 10 yr apart.

in the newborn stage my oldest wasn't able/wanted to do much.

even as an infant, my oldest was minimal help.  Our life was very stressful (out of state move, new baby, and Dh left the family) so my oldest had a lot of needs herself.

Now that the baby is a toddler, things can be really great or very stressful.  Dd1 still gets jealous of the baby, but they can play together.  The oldest can even watch the baby for a fewe hours and it better at getting the baby to nap than I am.

I do find I am dragging the baby to do things the oldest wants/needs to, but I find the baby enjoys this