Help - sibling jealousy

I desperately need some advise on how to handle my older child. I have a 3 year old girl who is now dealing with mixed emotions for her 5 weeks old sister. She starts by wanting to cuddle her and then invaribaly ends up giving her a whack. When u try to take the baby away at that point, in a last bit attempt she will try her best to do some damage. And i have also noticed that soon after that she feels bad about hitting the baby. I have tried explaining to her when shes in a mood to listen and she very sweetly agrees to not hitting the baby and very soon after that its back to square one.

I am spending all the available time with the older one so that she doesnt feel left out.

Would really appreciate if i can have some advice out of your own personal experience.


Thanks a lot

Mine are closer in age - but I will have a 3year old eldest child by the time my #3 rolls around.


I actually got quite a few tips to help "ease" transition for the new older sister.


1. A celebration (if you haven't done this, no harm doing it now) to celebrate your daughter becoming an older sister! A gift from the baby to your daughter, a cake, some nice music, and people saying how lucky she is to have an older sister. We did this on the day my 2nd came home from the NICU - and it was a sweet day for my older daughter.


2. A play doll for you daughter to get to pretend is "her" baby. This should be a doll that can be bathed, changed, brushed, held cuddled - this seemed to my help my daughter. IF I was preoccupied with the younger, I would remind her to get the doll and try to do whatever I was doing to the doll. (yes - she would lift up her shirt and breastfeed like me too.)


3. The smacking is pretty rough. I would respond, calmly and immediately sending your daughter to do some quiet time in her room afterwards. My daughter (now 3) sometimes in frustration hits her sister as well - and I just don't have any toleration for that. I immediately escort her to her room to sit there quietly to calm down. It's not just a punishment but also for a chance for her to reel in her emotions that may have been a bit enraged.


If you're doing the private time with your daughter -that is also the best thing to do - something special that only you two enjoy - a book, story telling, cooking -some time for just the two of you.


It sure isnt' easy raising two -I know. But I remember that after around 3 months, things seemed to calm down between my two daughters. My older daughter got used to the idea and sort of accepted and went along with it.

Hi. Have a look at askdrsears.com (you will have to simply enter your name and email address to 'register') but then you can enter the site. Place 'sibling rivalry' in the search box as I did (sorry, couldnt paste the link) and a great deal of very useful articles will be at your disposal! Good luck! I only have one small one but hear that this is all too common. All the best.

thanks guys...will definitely try out the ideas and the link mentioned by you two...hopefully things will settle down soon..

Really great ideas so far! I can tell you that the gift from baby to older sibling was a big success in our house. It was something the eldest really wanted and played with for years. She was something like 14 before she asked, "How did the baby GET the present?"


But anyway . . . another idea is to avoid displacing the older one as much as possible. One time the eldest was in an awful mood and I finally just asked "WHY?" She replied, "I don't want to be mommy's 'big girl'." After I reassured her that I could just have two babies, she got a lot more relaxed and probably did digress to baby-ways for awhile. (We had one hilarious incident in which she tried to wear a newborn size diaper, which even she laughed about when it was so obviously too small.)


Let big sister / brother "help" in any way possible. Mr. Rogers (Fred Rogers) wrote a book designed for the older sibling which tells the child some things he can do such as "teach the baby how to smile," and "show the baby how you can slide down the slide," things like that.


There's another thing I'm so glad I did. I told the older, "You don't have to love the baby, but you must be nice to her. Our family rule is that we treat each other with kindness and respect." This "kindness and respect" became a bit like a family mantra, they can say it to this day. It provided a bright line rule which was enforced with "time out" and body English. And we talked through issues to find how to treat each other by that standard. As a result of treating each other nicely, they really did develop deep, positive feelings and everything has always been mostly good rather than mostly bad.


Finally, nobody yet has said it but the book "Siblings Without Rivalry" is great. I saw it recently in the Harbor City Dymocks in Hong Kong.

We have actually tried the celebration thing right from the hospital. When my daughter came on the 1st day there was a gift waiting for her from her little sister. And it continued on each following day including the day we came back from hospital.


She also loves to help around like fetching her diaper, selecting her clothes before her bath, checking the water temp..


I have tried telling her that we will read tog or sing nursery rhymes tog ( both which she loves doing othertimes) while bfeeding but she just doesnt listen...she just doesnt want me to feed the baby..period.


Will try the other things mentioned above...

Oh, and stop people in their tracks when they ask how your oldest is dealing with the new baby. People seem to always ask in front of the children, and I think the children start to believe they should be jealous!