To be so upset about the way things are in our family: DH, my year old and our baby.

[QueenofmyPrinces]

I have two sons aged 4 and almost 8 months. The age gap is just under 3.5 years.

When the baby came along we had a few jealousy issues for about 6 weeks (but I expected that) but then my eldest started to dote on the baby and was constantly telling everyone how much he loved his big brother.

Fast forward to the last few weeks though and things have deteriorated so rapidly that I could cry about it. Suddenly he’s telling me he doesn’t love his brother anymore, he wished his brother wasn’t here and that his brother is ruining his life.

He’s started being very physically rough with the baby, purposefully pushing him hard, using his feet to roughly push the baby away, hitting him quite hard on his back, kicking him and the other day he even bit the baby leaving teeth marks in his hand. This behaviour has been going on every day for near enough 90% of the day. Our eldest has also started becoming quite defiant, ignoring everything we say to him and deliberately doing things he knows he shouldn’t.

I give him two warnings about his behaviour and if he does it for a third time, which he does about 90% of the time, he gets sent to his room. He’s not bothered though and just starts misbehaving again as soon as he comes out. I’m totally exasperated by it.

He’s normally well behaved for me (plays up more for his dad) and I’m quite calm with him but I admit I’ve lost my temper with him a lot over the last few weeks. My husband has got no patience for it at all and shouts at our eldest our lot, very loudly and harshly, sends him to his room frequently and I don’t like it.

When I ask our eldest why he’s done x, y or z, he just says “Because I did”. I then ask him the question again and he says “Because I’m a naughty boy.” I can’t bear hearing him say that as I know my DH calls him naughty quite frequently so I know my son now believes it. I also tell him that he’s not a naughty boy, he’s a good boy, but that he’s behaving in a way that we can’t allow.

I don’t know if it’s a change in his routine as it’s Easter Holidays over here so he’s been home every day as opposed to in childcare for 30 hours (his free funding) or the fact that as my DH is a teacher he’s been home every day for the last two weeks which he’s just not used to.

If anything is upsetting me the most it’s seeing the breakdown in the relationship between my DH and the eldest as they normally have such a wonderful bond. My eldest now seems to be pulling away from DH (I’m not surprised though) and wants me constantly and tells his dad that he’s on “mommy’s team” and he doesn’t want daddy to be in our team.

My DH was bought up in a very strict household and his dad was a patriarchal figure who cane down hard on any kind of poor behaviour which is where I think my DH gets it from. Throw in the fact my DH is a secondary school teacher and has to be strict and I think his attitude is a result of those factors.

Sometimes I worry DH appears to favour the baby over our eldest and I’ve told him to try and look at things through the eyes of a 4 year old but he doesn’t seem to grasp my point. I also worry though that the eldest think I favour the baby too because like I said, I’ve lost my temper at my eldest too when he’s been purposefully hurting the baby.

I fear I’m rambling now but I just needed to get it out because I’m feeling upset over it constantly.

I just needed to get it out and I’m desperate for some help or advice because it’s all just such a mess.

I find reward charts exhausting, because you end up deliberating what should be on, what he should be doing anyway and then you forget or invariably end up saying you won’t get a star etc and using it as a bargaining tool. So it’s not for everyone. The alternative is just to recognise and verbally praise good behaviour, specifying what it was and prevent or divert bad behaviour as much as possible once you can recognise the signs.

My DS was fine with his little sister until she was mobile. There is a 5 year difference so I thought I might have some problems. Once she started to move more I would hear comments like why do I have to have a little sister. He had no issues with time spent as we always spent time with him at the weekends just us and him whilst she was young. They get on okay now 5 years later but still have arguments as my DD is rather bossy.
Op, maybe try to explain to your eldest that’s as he’s older his little brother looks up to him and wants to be like his big brother mayb they might get on better.
I also have an issue with my DP and DS, they get on famously when they go out together however at home they are al2ays arguing. I say it’s because my DP had a very different upbringing and is a bit more strict and worries to much where as I’m more laid back and so is my mum who looks after them. But they have major arguments whilst at home where I have to get in the middle. I think it’s because during the week DP works 6 days a week as he works at a school and works on a Sunday somewhere else. So he’s now at home because of half term. I think it’s because they are not used to it.

It was when ds2 was about 8/9 months that ds1 became most jealous. Ds2_was mobile , developing a,personality rather than just lying in a noses basket and became cute and interesting to others. He would grab at ds1s previous toys and train tracks and generally annoyed him a lotmore. We made sure ds1 had space to play awayfromds2 (special toys in bedroom etc) and tried to give more one on one time. . It is hard but does get better

Hi OP, can sympathise. 3.5 between my 2 and when my eldest had turned 4, we went through very similar. I was at my wits end and spoke to my HV about how to help him. As well as what PP have said about praising the positive etc, she also mentioned that the amount of parents who were having trouble with their 4/5 year olds was immense and a lot of this was to do with the constant talk from neighbours, family and friends of starting ‘big school’ which for mine was looming that year. Whether it was connected or not, who knows, but I can tell you that it passed and they are the best of pals now and my only problem is them being a little gang of two who gang up on DH and I!

Hope I passes quickly for you, horrible to watch, I know.

It won’t be forever, although I’ll admit ours were horrible in the back of the car for a good few years!

I agree with PP about not labelling older DS, especially at a young age as the label could stay with him through child hood.

I think the other thing to old onto is that is actions are instinctive and emotional. Not calculated.

The advice about telling him what to do, not what not to do is at the heart of this.

4 year old son needs your time and attention away from baby. Regularly.

He needs to feel special and important and adored. Regularly.

He needs you and your DH to take him out/ spend time with him to help him realise that baby is no threat and never will be.

This has to happen regularly.

Imo.

I have similar though more extreme where my youngest is jealous of my older son. The younger feels he owns me. He is a child with a history of trauma so has extreme reactions. I just keep telling myself that his behaviour towards his brother comes from a place of fear and rejection. He needs drawing close at this point, not sending away, even though that seems to be the most logical reaction. I need to reassure him in that moment that I love him and that he and his brother have a place in my heart. Sending away will give him the opposite message. When he is being violent to his brother, I need to separate them, but again, try not to exclude him. Rewards have no effect, the feelings run deeper than that.

The baby stole his mum and dad.
Get him to sit beside you when you feed..get a book and have him turn the pages...read while you feed... So he doesn't feel alone....
The find something daddy can do as well....tell him how special he is and how he is your baby..... lots of attention when he is naughty ask him why... and how you can help fix it...look into his eyes from one to the other and wait for him to answer

I have to echo a previous poster and say that Laura Markham, her book calm parents, happy siblings and her website ahaparenting.com provide fantastic resources to deal with this. She explains why neither punishment or rewards will help because they don't address the root of the problem which is that your son is feeling pushed out by his brother. He's probably feeling very sad too about the deterioration in his relationship with his parents. It's a situation that is nobody's fault, but there are concrete steps you can take to help him to work through these emotions. Once he feels better, the behaviour should stop over time. That's not to say that you don't remove him from the situation and of course you should explain why being mean to the baby is wrong, but the primary issue is his emotions and helping him to deal with these.
Lots and lots of relevant articles on this on ahaparenting.com including
www.ahaparenting.com/blog/child_with_new_sibling
www.ahaparenting.com/ask-the-doctor-1/curing-sibling-rivalry-with-angry-four-year-old
www.ahaparenting.com/parenting-tools/helping-siblings-get-along

On anger (which every parent feels) I have found this article really helpful. Please do show it to your DH too.
www.ahaparenting.com/parenting-tools/positive-discipline/handling-anger

Good luck- her advice has worked wonders for me.

Oh yes, he also has gone through phases of seeing my husband as competition. That improved when dh went out of his way to build their closeness.

I have a 2.5 year age gap. Just the same the eldest sibling really struggled when Dc2 started crawling.

One thing that worked for me was praising Dc1 for teaching the baby to crawl. Along the lines of "Haven't you done a great job teaching baby to crawl. They saw you moving about and copied you. Shall we crawl around together and practice? What else can you teach them?" Obviously Dc1 in my case was a little younger but she became less jealous of the crawling and more proud.

We also set up areas where Dc1 could play without disturbance- on the table, back of the sofa etc. Although that did present another challenge when Dc2 learnt to climb and get to them all!

The relationship really improved as well at about 9 months when I really worked hard on getting Dc2 to do long naps so I got 2x 1.5 hour stretches to play with Dc1 uninterrupted.

My DH is also a teacher and I find behaviour deteriorates when he is around. Partly due to the change in routine but also his strict discipline methods (v similar to your DH). Not yet found the solution to this though!

And this is a great script for your DH to use: www.ahaparenting.com/parenting-tools/siblings/child-hits-baby

I wish he took formula!! I’ve been trying to give him formula for 7 months now for no luck.

The baby is currently napping so I’m playing board games with DS1 but he’s making so much noise. I keep asking him to be quiet so he doesn’t wake the baby because I want me and him to be able to play together for longer but it just results in him purposefully making more noise as though he wants to wake the baby up.

We have been discussing going swimming and I suggested he and DH go in order to spend time together but my DS said no, he wants me to go. So what do we do? Do I go and take away the opportunity for him to spend quality time with his dad? Or do I say no and he therefore feels rejected by me? Ideally we’d all go together but we don’t have swimwear for the baby yet.

He’s now bought a frisbee into the living room which I told him not 30 minutes ago we couldn’t play with in the house and we’d go to the park this afternoon and he’s trying to throw it around. It’s like he just deliberately ignores what we say to him.

You could just buy a swim nappy at the pool he doesn’t need a costume.

Yes he will deliberately push you into telling him off to confirm his feelings of rejection. In our house we say that the adults are in charge and we have decided that daddy is taking you swimming etc. When fearful, children become very controlling. Don’t take the bait (if possible). I try so hard not to send dis to his room, but sometimes he escalates and escalates to push me into it and I snap. It happens, but do try to ignore the bad behaviour and distract if possible!

Is he doing enough physically? My ds(3) is very energetic and if I don’t run the legs off him (nursery, playgroups, soft play, park, etc) he misbehaves. He also needs a lot of mental stimulation too. Maybe you could have set up some special time just for him when the baby naps?

I found reward charts were bloody hard work to maintain for the parents. Confiscating toys works for us! You throw it, it’s gets taken away for the rest of the day day. You don’t play nicely, you lose a toy for the day. Rewards are good but I don’t use food. It’s usually a little pound shop gift or a trip out or something.

Have you taken the frisbee off him yet? Take it off him and put it somewhere lockable. He gets it back when he's earned it back. Stop letting him walk over you!

Play something more interesting than the frisbee now. Or can you play frisbee a different way, eg hiding it or sliding it on the floor with different objects in? Take his ideas and make them more appropriate. He’s saying he hasn’t got the attention span for the board game.

Regarding the frisbee, it's natural for children to challenge limits. In that scenario I'd remove it (gently) as I'd already explained the limit (not in the house). I'd explain why, and empathise with how he must be feeling and comfort him if he gets upset. Re swimming I'd ask who he wants to go with again and go with that for today. If you can both work on repairing your relationship using ahaparenting.com in the longer term that will really help.

And it's clear at the moment he feels that he wants to hurt his brother, so you asking him to be quiet so as to not wake the baby means he will naturally want to be noisy. He doesn't understand that it's because you want to spend time with him. Can you focus on that in your explanations e.g. 'I'm having such a great time playing, I wish I could play with you all day. I don't want the baby to wake up. Shall we practice being really really quiet so they don't wake up?' etc.

I don't understand why you can't do whatever the 4yo wants to do and take the baby along. 8mo óbviously don't get much out of your average soft play / farm but they're usually free and that's the downside of being the youngest, you get dragged along! Then you can have your day out with ds, dh can push the pram and you can still feed baby. Separate days out for him reinforce the team thing a bit if you do it all the time.

DD2 has successfully slept round all kinds of exciting places, she missed huge chunks of both peppa pig world and Legoland. Luckily this was okay because she also hated rides

He obviously wants to spend time with you (alone) - take him swimming and leave the baby with DH. Surely by 8mo the baby can have a rice cake or some baby food rather than needing constant breast feeding?
4yo don't have a great attention span and at that age my DS needed to be out the house by about 9.30 otherwise he would be climbing the walls.
If DH is a teacher use the time he is home for him to bond with baby and give you time with DS.

I'm sorry but I can't get over the fact that you say that your other child is allowed to hurt your baby for 90 per cent of the day and you say you give him 3 warnings - he is allowed to hurt the baby THREE TIMES - before you take ANY action?! I WTF? Your poor baby deserves you to take this more seriously I'm afraid.

You say your DP is 'too strict' but it sounds like maybe he is the one taking this seriously and he is being pushed into always being the disciplinarian by you being too laid back.

I think the post above, about making your child stay by you for a set time when he is misbehaving makes a lot of sense.

Does he see you correct DS2 for grabbing etc?

Have you tried Therapeutic Parenting? Basically it follows the logic of 'natural consequences' for misbehaving. So, don't threaten to take the jar of sweets from him if he hurts his brother as there is no correlation between the sweets and the deed. A therapeutic way might be that you can't play with older son for 15 minutes as you are comforting your younger son who was hurt. You don't prolong consequences and they have to be immediate so (for example) you wouldn't punish at home for a wrong deed in school.

Your partner needs to stop calling him naughty, this is shaming him and as he is already calling himself naughty becoming a self fulfilling prophecy. In a similar way reward charts don't work as it shames the child if they don't make it.

Look up Therapeutic Parents on Facebook, there's loads of advice and support on there for this type of behaviour and lots more.