For being insanely irritated by my step son?

[Grinty1]

He's 12. Pulls a strop if I don't let him push the pram/feed the baby/carry the baby. Pulls a full blown tantrum if I respectfully ask him not to interupt me when I'm talking to another adult. He constantly tries to undermine me in front of others. He criticises my parenting- exaggerating the danger my baby is in to suggest I'm not taking care of her (for example when I'm feeding her, he'll tell me the pieces of food are too large and she'll choke, if she's crawling around on the floor and I'm watching her and allowing her to explore/deliberately not disturbing her, he'll suggest I'm putting her in harms way). I'll ask my husband a question about the news or politics or his job (or anything really) and my step son will answer adament he is correct (he claimed to know the names of some random small ferry boats we passed today for example). He'd look at my belly and ask me if I'm pregnant. When I asked him to stop doing this, he started insinuating how difficult it would be for us to have another child and how he doesn't want another sibling.

As an example, we went out for breakfast recently. He complained about the menu. He complained about the food he'd ordered. I asked him to get me a bottle of milk from a cooler bag which he did. But then he stood up, took the lid off, started walking around the table to feed fhe baby. When I told him there was no need and he could just pass me the bottle, he complained. I mentioned to my husband I wanted to try honey on my sourdough. My step son grabbed the little bowl of honey and proceeded to pour it on a random piece of bread on my plate. He complained when I asked him to stop. My baby had dropped a toy onto the floor. I gave it a wipe down with a wet wipe and returned it to her. He suggested I was being careless.

I've been able to accept the usual boy behaviours like never using deodorant, rewearing dirty clothes, picking his toenails in the living room where the baby crawls around, never tidying his room, leaving his food wrappers and dirty plates everywhere. But the other stuff is making me want to tear my hair out and scream every single day.

Is this normal tween behaviour? AIBU?

Yeah all this would annoy the shit out of me too

Doesn't his dad pull him up on this ?

You have a DH problem - he should be the one parenting, clearing up (or telling DS to clear up), teaching hygiene and setting the boundaries for manners etc. Doesn't sound like he's doing much.

I think some 12yos can be bossy like this, and he's probably jealous/unsettled by the new baby and is trying to find a way to fit in or help.

Would recommend DH has lots of 1:1 time with him - that's the point of contact (unless he lives with you full time?).

What do you allow him to do with/ for his sibling? Does he live with you full-time?

I'd be more concerned about the hygiene related things that don't bother you, and allow him to help care for his little sibling more, as you seem to be thwarting him at every opportunity.

The rudeness should also be dealt with, what is his father doing to address this?

Yes this would drive me bonkers.

How often does he stay with you and dh? He does need pulling up on this very sternly by his dad. I’m guessing he is unsettled by a new sibling.

He’s probably unsettled but this needs nipping in the bud by his dad ASAP.

Until this happens I would limit my time around him and certainly wouldn’t provide any childcare for him.

This would all drive me mad too. Also want to know how your DH deals with all this, or what DH says to you about it?

What kind of way is he talking about the "danger" stuff? Does he seem genuinely worried or is he just undermining you and trying to make you feel bad?

What’s his dad doing about this?

Just that I'd probably not expect a 12 year old boy to be so obsessively worried about stuff that is not actually dangerous or even know much about about baby weaning to mention chunk sizes / choke risk.

Having forceful opinions on stuff they know very little about in general though - very common 12 year old behaviour in my experience anyway.

That's not normal 12 year old boy behaviour.

What does his dad say/do?

Is he very anxious about his baby sibling ? This seems driven by anxiety or fear to me ?
The honey incident maybe he thought it would be helpful. It's hard to know
Certainly it seems unusual behaviour so would be worth getting under the skin of this as I don't think it sounds like bad manners but something more

To me it sounds like he has special needs (is he diagnosed?) and you may not understand where some of these behaviours are coming from.

What kind of special needs do you think you are able to diagnose from a few posts on the Internet?

I'm not diagnosing anything but have a lot of experience with SEN. But to me it's certainly sounds the kid may be in the spectrum and it's have anxiety. Just something to look into, surely better than bitching about a 12yo kid.1

His Dad needs to parent him!

His dad needs to pull him up on his behaviour. You need to pull him up when he's rude to you. Between you come up with strategies to manage the behaviour so it's consistent.

@Grinty1 does dss live with you 100% of time? what is dad saying to him about his rude behaviour!!!

I also have a lot of experience with SEN and a severely autistic son ,and think arm chair diagnosis on mumsnet is ridiculous

How can you possibly say it sounds like he's on the spectrum based on a few posts?

Could it just be that he wants to help and feel more involved with his sibling but you keep pushing him away?

What does his dad do when he's being like this?

This screams to me that he might be feeling very pushed out by the baby, and is trying to resist that by re-establishing his position in this new family that is all centred on the baby. He's still a kid and he's doing it badly, being heavy handed and annoying.

There is nothing worse than showing how annoyed you are with a child for making their behaviour even more annoying, so I suspect your reaction to him is creating a vicious circle.

You catch more flies with honey. I think 90% of this is helping him feel more secure and still welcome in your changed family. This doesn't mean tolerating bad behaviour or humouring ridiculous suggestions, but working on the adults' relationship with him. Of course his dad is the most important person to be doing this but a step-parent can too, if they choose to.

Do you understand what a suggestion is? I'm not diagnosing him, just offering a suggestio it could be part of the equation, again surely ok for op to look into it rather than moaning and being frustrated, abd finding the root of the behaviours is a priority. I'm sure you know lots of people in the spectrum display behaviours that people sometimes label as "annoying". If not, a good therapist could point OP in the right direction, but you need somewhere to start.

But noooo, let's not offer solutions, let's just gang up on the kid who's not"normal", right....