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!

I totally get where you're coming from. This sounds like a more constant and extreme version of what my four year old DD is like with DD2 (7 weeks).

You're burnt out, it's stressful when another child casually wakes your baby as they (naturally) have no real concept of how hard it was to settle them and how much you needed that rest, and actually it's frustrating that they're not listening to you. That winds me up and my DD is only 4, it would definitely annoy me from a 7 year old.

It's a difficult balance to strike as you don't want to spoil their growing bond, but I don't think how you're feeling is unnatural.

I think you perhaps need to try and stress that he needs to listen to you about things like not grabbing her when you're standing etc, whilst heaping lots of praise on for how much he loves his little sister generally. This is what I do with my DD.

I remember when breastfeeding newborn my other child would deliberately fly his plane very close to his head and in my face - the older child knows this is a moment they have quite a lot of power and they will use it!

He seems to have latched onto kissing as a way of making some noise and getting attention. Not sure what the answer is, except to give it minimal attention, just explain to him calmly to give her some space. And give him extra attention, one on one at other times. It would drive me mad too.

I'm with your husband!! Non of what your saying sounds normal. Poor lad just wants to love his sister

Your son sounds lovely but I can understand why it can be annoying!

The breastfeeding hormone prolactin can apparently cause maternal aggression, so this could also be a factor??

Give him a time that he can do it, such as evenings and some restrictions, he’s old enough to handle that. But also reconnect with him, if it’s driving you crazy it sounds like you have disconnected with him somewhat. Its’ natural as you are busy with the baby, but it’s very common to feel insecure as an older sibling with the shock of a new baby - can you treat him, make him feel good and special?

Is there a reason why you haven't disciplined your son for repeatedly ignoring you and for not respecting your dds personal space?

The reason is literally because I didn't know if it was unfair for me to make him stop. As some of the responses on this situation are clearly so divided, its hard to know whether I am the problem or my son actually is doing something wrong. If I was more sure of where I stand I would enforce it, whether putting limits on myself or my son (or both)

That sounds very over the top, telling him over and over why you love him. I can see why he’s doing the attention seeking kissing, he is directing your attention away from the baby with his actions. Notes telling him you love him? You’re modelling for him that you constantly tell/show him how much you love him. He’s reflecting your behaviour.

I would stop him doing the constant kissing, it’s probably thoroughly annoying the baby, especially if he’s yanking her as you go to pick her up, that’s dangerous. He’s 7, he is old enough to be told never to pull her and to stop the endless kissing. I’m amazed you haven’t snapped yet, you must have endless patience!

He’s being aggressive and concealing it with a usually sweet and socially acceptable act. He needs to learn that it’s still aggression and unacceptable. He’s old enough to understand this kind of manipulation.

Can you redirect his behaviour? Get him to make a card for the baby, give him a teddy to kiss?

Have you tried ignoring the kissing or not reacting to it, but giving lots of positive attention when he interacts without kissing (but not mentioning anything about kissing).
Might take a while. If he kisses her, just ignore it and ignore him.
Its going to be a self limiting problem. Hes still really little himself, despite probably seeming really big to you, and little kids do do weird stuff.

If he is hurting your baby and doing things you've asked him not to he is doing something wrong. That doesn't mean there isn't a reason for that that you can work with and channel more appropriately or that you don't need to look if your responses aren't helping.

His behaviour is distressing you. You dont want him to do it.

You dont need any more reason than that or to over think it

It doesn't really matter what the behaviour is. You've repeatedly asked him to stop doing something and he is ignoring you.

What will you do when your dd becomes distressed by it? Keep letting him away with it anyway?

The posters saying ignore it seem to have missed the bits when he is hurting the baby .

Also this.

It's really ott

Several months & he hasn't been told just to leave her the fuck alone?

Christ, you wouldn't let a kid pester a dog like that!

Exactly

How is that response supposed to help the OP?

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.

As for that-there really are no words.

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

That's what I was going to suggest. Also he's seven. He should be able to understand the concept of germs from saliva, especially growing up in Covid times.

I disagree with others saying he needs more attention from you. From what you say it sounds as he gets more than enough, and you sound very much more sentimentally affectionate with him than many parents. Any more and it would get a bit weird, imo!

So yep, a strategy to replace the kissing with a different gesture of affection, and a chat about germs ("do you remember when we had to be really careful about Covid? Well it's flu season now so it's important that we keep baby free of germs")

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.

I missed this first time round. That is actually really concerning. Your baby demonstrates that she dislikes the kissing, yet your husband thinks she should have to put up with it?
Quite apart from dwelling on where this attitude could lead with regard to his daughter (which is a whole new conversation) your son doing something she doesn't like is hardly going to build a positive relationship in her eyes.

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.

Would your husband like it if every time he was trying to leave the house and go to work, or eat a sandwich when he's hungry, you got in between the front door or the food, and prevented him doing what he wanted/needed to do. Or imagine he was asleep after working a long shift and you woke him up to say, 'Ooh you're so lovely'. Also, imagine if rather than being approximately the same size as your husband you were a giant who could easily get in the way. Ask him to imagine what it would be like if the giant woman did this over and over again.'

I think I would question how much a 7 year old is able to have a relationship with a much younger sibling. It's more that they see the younger child as a toy or object to be played with/controlled, and they'd still be struggling to see the younger person as a separate person with needs of their own.

It would be annoying but you seem to be emotionally overreacting. I’m wondering if there’s a gendered component on your part and if you wouldn’t feel so uncomfortable if a daughter the same age was doing this.

Is it possible your disturbed by your son showing “too much” affection for a boy and are trying to encourage him to act more like what you think a boy who is to grow into a man should do?

This.

It sounds to me like the anxiety exhaustion overwhelm of 2 kids + new baby is being entirely focused on DS.

You need to try and calm yourself right down, take a step back and make a concerted effort to stop obsessively fixating on it as you are. At the end of the day he is simply kissing the baby as he might a new pet.

It’s possible he’s trying to keep himself relevant and in your circle of attention, but that’s ok he may feel thrown by the new addition.