Can someone please give me some quick advice?

[Camellia]

I'll try to make this short. My son is 5.5years and had recently been pinching my 3 month old in the car. I didn't know why she cried so much in the car and I finally was convinced it was him and he confessed. We had been staying home almost all Summer because I thought she just hated the car.

So, now I have been watching them real closely. Yesterday I must have turned my back on them for a second because Kylie ended up with a bruise around her leg just below her knee. I had no idea what it was, and was worried. As i was falling asleep last night I realized it was the shape and size of Jackson's hand

So, this morning I asked him when it happend and sure enough, it was yesterday.

I am so angry I just asked him to go to his room while I think about what to do. When someone is hurting your baby anger and rage, but its my other baby doing it sio I am at a loss as what to do.


Please help if you can with some advice.

Thank-you!

[Camellia]

:

Anyone have any words of wisdom for me?

[famousmockngbrd]

I wsh I did - my DS is not yet 2 and he's my only one, so I have no expertise in resolving these things. The only thing I can think to say is try to keep talking to him about hurting his sister, be patient, and watch them like a hawk. Maybe some roleplaying with a doll might help you find out why he is doing it?

I hope someone has some good advice for you. I can understand how frustrating it must be for you.

[captain optimism]

Okay, I also have not BTDT, but I went for the bookshelf and got out my favorite, Becoming the Parent You Want to Be. This is from page 404:

Toddlers and young preschoolers don't automatically know that babies are people. After all, babies come in a different size. They don't talk. They don't walk. They don't have teeth or eat solid food. They don't do a lot of things young children have grown to expect from people. So the older sibling sets out to explore the baby for signs of life, much as he or she would explore any other object--physically. As parents, it's important to respect the older child's curiosity about the baby and to set clear limits about what's safe.

This sounds somewhat counterintuitive to me, but the authors (Laura Davis and Janis Keyser) suggest giving older siblings a chance to interact softly and gently, even when the older child has begun by hitting and poking!

Maybe you can do a few sessions of teaching the older child how to hold the younger child? (With lots of supervision!) And then, even put him in charge of telling other people how it's done?

So that's one idea about how to handle it. Here is another one: try reading children's books about new siblings. I remember reading Julius the Baby of the World by Kevin Henkes with my niece when my nephew was a baby.

As I said, I haven't been there but like famousmockngbrd I didn't want to leave you hanging, so I got published advice instead!

[Camellia]

Thank-you both for your replies. You have offered some great advice, and I have gotten a ton of great advice on the TAO board as well. This has been a rough morning and I truly appreciate all of the wonderful support I have recieved here.

MDC Mama's are the greatest!

[MomInFlux]

nak Just one quick thought - maybe you can explain to your DS what effect his pinching the baby has had - i.e., you can't go anywhere fun in the car because he's hurting the baby. Good luck!

[BoobyJuice]

I'm so sorry. I can only imagine how hard it would be. Makes me upset and it's not my baby being pinched. Mine are much closer in age so I don't know how much help I'll be. At that age, we read lots of "I'm the big brother now" type books -there are lots of them. We also helped him hold the baby. But, my ds1 was only 25 months when ds2 was born. He ignored him when he was that small, but we're having lots of problems now that the "baby" is a walking, almost talking, toy taking person.

I have no patience for hurting anyone - even siblings (people keep telling me they need to deal with this themselves) - we talk a lot about violence never being OK, even if you are frustrated, mad, sad, etc. I'm expecting my son to a least partially understand at 3 1/2 so I would expect a 5 yo to get it. The other big thing I always tell him is that we would never allow anyone to hurt him - so we won't let anyone hurt our other baby either. It's not that the baby gets special treatment; they're both our babies and we love them both and don't want either of them hurt. We also talk about the fact that he's bigger. Bigger means food the baby can't eat (well it used to anyway), staying up later or riding a bike or whatever. We also point out that we are bigger than him but never hurt him. Just because you are bigger doesn't mean you can push, hit, yank toys, etc.

As for your son not knowing he's hurting her - she's crying right? If our son does it more than once in a day we tell him if he can't play nice with his brother he can't play with him. Since his brother is in the room with the toys that usually means he has to go upstairs to their room alone. I guess I am much less understand than other posters, but in our house it is never OK to hurt anyone.

Good luck. I hope you find a solution to all of this soon. Try giving the baby to daddy and spending some extra special time with the big guy - that always helps!

[Greaseball]

What about keeping them apart in the car? Put his seat by one door and the baby seat by the other one. Then pile stuff in the middle that you can secure with the belt - maybe even another carseat with a giant doll inside? Just something to make it so he can't reach the baby.

[Stevie]

I separated my two while we were doing a long drive the past few days. DD is 4 and her brother is almost 9 mo. He usually loves to ride, so I couldn't figure out why he was so fussy. Finally dawned on me that his sister was being a "pill". I put the baby in the front passenger seat (no airbags). DD was a bit upset as this is the place of honor for big sisters, but I just said that it seemed he wasn't happy in the back seat, so we needed to try something different. No blaming her, just "fixing" the problem that her brother seemed to be having. Since it worked (DS was happy as a clam) I doubt that she will play that particular game again

[cinnamonamon]

s mama! What a difficult situation. I went on a roadtrip with a friend who had a 5 year old and an 11 month old, and the 5 year old behaved in similar ways. I don't know anything about your family dynamic, but this little boy had a LOT of unresolved issues & insecurities that would need to be worked through before the "symptoms" (i.e. hitting/pinching etc.) would abate. Perhaps an in depth talk is in order...

Good luck!

[eilonwy]

Well, I've got a little travel pillow in the van that I stuck between my kid's carseats so that BeanBean can't see/reach BooBah when they're both strapped in. He wasn't hurting her deliberately, but he would grab at her arms or steal her blanket. I gave him his own blanket and put the pillow in and haven't had a problem with them since.

[Alkenny]

I also seperated my oldest two when they were little (27 months apart) because my dd would BITE her baby brother!