No problem giving details.
Firstly , the introduction period is emotionally and physically tough on everyone. He couldn't be part everything as everything is done gradually. So he was aware that we were going off to meet his new sister but he was excluded.Not great.
He was introduced to her gradually and then the introductions switched from the foster home to our home. Then our house would be full of social workers, health visitors , foster carers etc. He hated that. All these strangers in the house all the time!
His behaviour started to become more challenging.
First he started trying to control me and everything that happened in the house. He would ask me to get him things , play with him, help him with things constantly. Nothing was enough for him.
He would be rude, do naughty things like writing on walls or deliberately destroying DD's toys. If things didn't go his way he would have a major meltdown and I'd spend another half an hour calming him down or making him stay on the naughty spot. I would often realise that I'd just spent two hours being controlled by a 3 year old!
The pre school also reported a few incidents but they managed to get him back on the straight and narrow pretty quickly!
Meanwhile my 10 month old DD would be happily entertaining herself. She was so undemanding!
We realised quickly that he was just trying to keep all of our attention on him so we just stepped up all the reassurance , gave lots of cuddles , maintained a constant approach with regard to discipline and generally muddled through.
I can't say we found any great solutions and unfortunately the tantrums and bad behaviour went on for almost a year.
Luckily we have great family support so we coped but I look back on that period and feel sad for my DD because so much of my time went to DS and I feel bad for my DS because he must have been so confused.
We took loads of video of DD's first week with us and we noticed that DS kept jumping in front of the camera and doing goofy stuff so that we filmed him instead. We found it funny at the time but watching back now it makes me feel really sad for him.
They get on great now - they have their moments like all siblings!
One thing I will say is that DS's problems may have been due to his fear of change which is linked to when he was transferred from his foster carer to us. If he had been a birth child he may not have reacted so strongly.
We go through challenging behaviour every time there is a change in his life. Even a holiday can trigger problems.
I've prattled on a bit and am off to bed now but I'll be around tomorrow if you have any more questions.