To find this incredibly annoying-son kissing baby

[Shandyinthejarro]

I've posted before under a different username and I know a lot of you will think I'm being silly.

I have a lovely, sweet, kind 7 year old son and a 9 month old baby. My son seems to have an irresistible urge to kiss the baby and its driving me around the bend. I mean, it's seriously starting to impact me mentally. First World problems, whatever.

For several months he has been kissing her over and over, either on the hand on the face. It's started off as being the loudest, slurpiest, smacking sound. He was deliberately kissing her in a way that made the most noise. The noise more than drove me mad: it actually distressed me at the time, especially if he did it when I was breastfeeding her. I don't want to start using very dramatic language, but sometimes I wanted to cry as the noise kept happening over and over, sometimes very much in my space.

Now, he kisses her in a much more quiet way but in an open mouthed sort of way that often leaves saliva on her face or hand. This does my head in too. If I'm picking her up off the ground when they are playing together, he will automatically grab her hand to kiss it goodbye, which means sometimes her arm gets pulled back as I'm lifting her. I've explained the dangers of this over and over. Since she has started crawling, he will also lift her hand to kiss it and it destabilises her as she is on all fours. I've spoken to him about that too, but the urge seems to be too strong to resist. Baby generally starts whinging when he does it and we have explained how he needs to respect her space and back off when he hears the whinging noise.

My baby has been sleeping absolutely terribly the past few weeks. I mean waking up every 90 minutes all night and hardly napping in the day. I was becoming a zombie. For the past three nights, she has been sleeping in good long stretches of 4 hours or so and I feel like a new woman. Last night was a good night and this morning I was having a dream where I was listening to music and the music gradually turned into the sound of a baby whinging, that dreaded sound. Soon, I woke up and realised the baby whinging was mine. My son was lying beside me looking very worried. The first thing he said was 'it's my fault, I kissed her hand and she woke up'.

It was 7.30, so a 'lie in' anyway but I had been in a deep sleep, the baby was asleep and I felt so upset that this very rare occasion was interrupted by his kissing.

I adore my son, I really do. He gets a huge amount of love, affection and attention from me and my husband. We make a lot of time for his emotional well being and I know he is a very happy child with a huge amount of love in his heart. We have talked about the kissing and he says its because he just loves the baby so much. My husband says I need to get over the kissing thing as our boy just loves his sister and we shouldn't stand in the way of that relationship.

However I cannot help this visceral reaction and a few times I have physically batted my sons hand away when he has gone to to kiss the baby today. I've lost count of how many times it has happened since this morning. I'm actually a bit of a Ned Flanders goodie two-shoes type who never swears and there have been a few times I've felt like screaming 'f* off!' at my 7 year old child! I haven't and wouldn't but this isn't normal surely!

Other than this issue, I'm very happy, no PND, we are a happy family, all is going well, and I generally love motherhood and have a very high threshold for the ups and downs of a mum's life. I normally take everything in my stride but this is driving me so crazy that I asked my husband to take my son out with the baby for a walk as I seriously need some space.

Any advice!

You could be right. A psychologist told me that things that annoy us about other people are often like holding a mirror to ourselves. It’s something we don’t like about ourselves.

Yes I definitely ask him what he wants to do. Drawing together, watch a movie with sweets and a blanket, sticking stickers in his football book, taking silly selfies etc. I ask for his input a lot.

I do think he had a nature which can be a bit compulsive and unfortunately I recognise myself in that, which is maybe why I get so triggered!

Are there any other things he does compulsively? And how do you deal with those?

Good question @NoSquirrels . He developed a tic a few years ago which I think was down to some anxiety at the time. I researched it and got some advice and had a two pronged approach of ignoring the tic while ramping up all the positive stuff. He still gets it from time to time but we ignore it.

I think I should maybe just ignore the kissing and redirect his attention while keeping up with the attention stuff.

When you have a baby your older children look bigger and sometimes inconciously you can perceive them as a threat to your precious newborn. its instivtinvr to want to prorxt the baby but your son isn't doing any harm, apart from being a bit annoying. My baby is 1 now and her brother is 5, he annoys her sometimes and I have to remind him that if she is whining it's a sign yo back off and leave her alone.

I'd do constant reassurance to your sometimes that he is loved as ever but also reminders that kissing baby over and over can be annoying to her.

Im sort of sympathetic to this situation because I (and DD who is 3) both love kissing babies!

There's just something irresistible about those soft little cheeks. DD is basically desperate for a baby sibling because sge wants a baby to kiss (she isn't going to get one, alas).

DD will also kiss me a lot and its often quite sloppy but i love it

I wouldnt discourage the affection I'd just focus on him not destabilising her and try to tell him to close his mouth

*unconsciously even

Can i just say that I feel a million times better having reached out. All of the responses are really valid and helpful and yes, I do feel sensory overloads very easily, and coupled with breastfeeding and lack of sleep, things have been magnified.

I think this is the key to it all. You express your love to your son in what I would consider quite an overwhelming/overbearing way. He is copying what you've modelled to him, in how he shows love to his sister.

When you talk about how physically affectionate you are as a family (which is lovely by the way!), maybe your son is just mirroring how you show love to him, with how he shows love to his sister?

I actually think learning boundaries and consent is important and siblings are a brilliant way of showing this long before anything sexual comes into the picture. From very young I would say “look, he doesn’t look super happy with you laying on top of him, so jump off and let’s find a new thing to do”, and talking about reading siblings expressions, don’t wait for them to say no or stop Mine are now 10 and 12 and although they have their moments, they are actually very respectful of each other’s personal space.

So redirecting with a “when the baby whinges like that, it’s her way of showing she doesn’t like what you’re doing, even though she loves you. But we know she loves it when you do X (stroke her cheek, read her a story, play with a toy) so let’s do that instead.

It sounds like you’ve made a mountain out of a molehill.

Your son needs to stop kissing her so frequently as it’s annoying you. Why can’t you instil some boundaries there and indeed some consequences if he continues to do it. I have a 7 year old boy and he would never do this repeatedly if I told him not too. To want to cry about it is a bit much. Just get him to stop,
problem solved.

It all sounds a bit cloying to me. I think it's great that you're an affectionate, attentive parent - and that kisses and hugs and saying loving things are part of that. But if you're implicitly saying that this is what people in families should do as much as possible, is it hardly surprising that he is - for whatever reason -choosing to imitate this/pass on this behaviour to the new arrival.

Does your son have friendships and hobbies? Does he enjoy school? It's great if he feels positive about his baby sibling - though perhaps there may be some ambivalence as people suggest. But it would be healthier if he regarded this new member of the family as occasionally lovely, sometimes irritating - but basically irrelevant to his own, much more grownup world. I think that some of the time his attention should be directed elsewhere.

I think he needs more attention. Can his dad take him out for special daddy /DS time?

Also, give yourself a break. You must be knackered. Even my lovely cat annoyed the crap out of me when I was breast feeding. It'll pass op x

Definitely taking on board that I have maybe created an extremely affectionate child! Again our middle child isn't over affectionate at all, and we respect that and don't push it, but the problem might just be that me and my son are the most alike in the family and maybe that's why I get so irate. A lot to think about.

Yes son loves school, has lots of friends and hobbies outside of school too.

Well said @CatherinedeBourgh

Especially given the DH in this scenario, who tells OP to put up with it -
he says its because he just loves the baby so much.

Ghastly.
Modelling male entitlement on a 7 year old boy - "it's ok because he loves her" -
not too far a jump from - "he's only mean cos he likes you" or "he can't help pinching your bum cos he fancies you so much."

btw I'm NOT saying that DS will grow up to say those things to his own sister! - but the mindset is what leads to boys thinking that their feelings about girls surpersede those girls' rights to personal autonomy.

I feel really sorry for your poor son. He adores his sibling, kisses present no danger but lots of positivity. You are being really unreasonable.

@SheWoreARaspberryBeret123 yes dh does a lot with him and they have a hobby they do together as well. Dad also very affectionate haha! The thing is I literally don't know how much more attention we could give our son. I already do what everyone suggests and probably more, in that respect. Some people here even described it as overbearing and cloying (value these responses too BTW!)

Honestly, I think part of the problem is that you're touched out - and because your very strong instincts are driving you towards the baby, you're projecting your touched-out-ed-ness at your eldest DS. Which is fine. And actually one of the reasons that I only have one child, because I really struggled with that when DS was born and knew it would be ten-fold if we had a second.

Are you getting any time alone? I know how hard that is with a BF baby, but even a 15 minute walk around the block where no-one is responsible for you at all. Might that help?

Agree. Regardless of whether he is kissing her or shoving her, his is bad behaviour for the purpose of seeking attention, and needs to be managed accordingly. What would you do if he behaved like this with a friend's baby?

The problem will probably resolve once your DD can speak/run away/bite him, but you shouldn't wait that long. Tell DS not to touch the baby and make sure there are natural consequences e.g. if you see it's too hard for him to leave her be, then he'll have to be in a different room; if he wakes her (and therefore you), then you are too tired to take him to do something nice he was looking forward to.

I'm reading my reply back and some other posts and realising we're all telling you to carve out some time, either for son, yourself, baby - like you have a magical time clock that can give you another couple of hours in the day, and when you're exhausted too. God love you, mothering is hard!

The kissing is not annoying or upsetting the baby - it is upsetting YOU. You ate therefore the problem.
your poor boy who loves his sibling gets his hand smacked just because his mother can’t cope. I’ve heard it all now. Take yourself into another room and calm the heck down.

I am sure he has struggled with new baby coming along and doing this is getting attention from you. But he is hurting the baby and that's not ok, pulling her arm back, destabilising her when crawling all dressed up in a kiss. I think this should be the focus, not kissing .

Looks like he's doing it in purpose knowing he will get a reaction from you. If you had ignored him it would have fizzled out by now.

I would just say that you can kiss the baby in x place once per day but it's her body and she needs some space. And reinforce with sanctions. There is no irresistible urge to kiss and it's clearly pestering her. Never too early to learn to respect another's personal space and boundaries.

Not on.