to tell my 6 and 8 year old they can only hold their newborn sister sitting down and with supervision?

[DreamingofFour]

My 6 and 8 year old have welcomed our newborn baby with love and enthusiasm and want to spend all day carrying her around. Although I definitely don't think they would deliberately hurt her, I am insisting that they only hold her when sitting down and supervised (I am in the vicinity). I worry that they might carelessly be a bit rougher or clumsy with the baby. They are most upset with me but I have stuck to my guns. AIBU?

I don't think you are BU, you are following your instincts which is normally the best thing to do.

YANBU.

When my DD was that age, those rules would have applied to her holding our dog let alone a baby!

I agree, friends (or maybe even DH! ) would be told the same.

YANBU

My daughters were 4 & 6 when their little sister came along & I applied the same rule.

Only time it was disobeyed was the time I went to answer the door to the postman & dd3 started to cry in her moses basket. DD2 (4y) thought she should take her sister to mummy & walked along the hall holding her little sister to her chest with her arms wrapped around her neck

Think you would be mad to let a 6 year old wander around with a newborn! Besides the children, does anyone in RL actually think you are being unreasonable?

YANBU. They're very young and presumably not used to babies. You're just being responsible.

There are some eight year olds who have lots of experience (e.g. with several younger siblings) and could be allowed to hold the baby for 10 mins while you made a phonecall etc.. but that's a lot further down the road.

I made my 6 & 8 year-old DDs sit down under supervision to hold our guinea pigs when we first got them. YANBU.

xfirsttimemummyx Thu 06-Jan-11 13:57:57

YADNBU I wouldn't even let my friends hold her without sitting down, even the ones with children, accidents happen especially when you are dealing with children. Good choice DreamingofFour, stick to your guns

Dear oh dear. Do you have any friends?

OP - YANBU.

thanks for the messages, think we may have been a little too relaxed about this in the first few weeks,partly because I remember helping my mum with my baby sister, when I was eight, but I am definitely going to stick to the rules now!

xfirsttimemummyx.... I think you need to check out the PFB thread

Dreaming... not unreasonable at all, although they'd never intentionally hurt her, kids of those ages aren't renowned for their common sense and can be quite clumsy. When she's a bit sturdier it'll be differant but as a newborn who needs so much careful support when being held you're definitely right to make them sit down and keep and eye on them.

Mine were 2.5 and 4 when the youngest came along and i think they each got one go of sitting with the baby on their laps and that was the end of it.