2.5 year toddler with new baby

[pamelat]

DD (2.5) always been "challenging"/demanding. Beautiful bright intelligent etc and a bloody nightmare

Along comes baby brother (9 weeks)

At first DD seems to have really turned a corner. Toilet trained herself (at her request) on his arrival within a day, in a big bed (at her request) and offering cot to baby brother. All was good. She was a real angel and we thought we may have had our share of "terrible 2's" which started at 14 months for us.

This last week has been the week from hell.

Waking each night, screaming, trantrums, attempts to hit DH (but not quite doing it as she knows its really naughty), very clingy to me (to the point of being rude to everyone else).

I am breastfeeding and she hates it, "dont feed him mummy" etc etc.

Now I know its normal to be jealous and am doing the "isnt baby alex boring, soon he will be big and be able to play with you" type stuff and making sure i take time out with just her, took her swimming by herself etc.

When its just me and her, she is fine (but its never for long as feeding him).

She is even being nice to him really, no hitting, throwing. In fact saying "I love you baby alex" and being quite cute.

What we are struggling with is the screaming over basic basic stuff, ie) brushing teeth, going to bed, getting dressed. everything has become about almost bribing her to do it

Her behaviour towards her dad (my DH) and both grandmas (who have been drafted in to help on the odd day) is really rude "go away, just mummy and DD" type stuff.

I know I am lucky to have their help but would I be better to go it alone, maybe she would cope better with that? And yet its their help that enables me to take her swimming whilst they hold DS etc ...

Am just so tired, and consequently ratty and consequently find myself shouting at her which then really upsets her. She is just being impossible, and the wakings at night do not help.

sorry to hear it's being hard... I read your post as i'm going to be in your situation in 6 months time...

Can the grannies do more of the baby stuff (although I'm sure you want to bond with baby too)

Or can you sling baby and tryin and carry on as normal? A ring sling would mean you could BF and move around...

thank you knitter although only 9 weeks he weighs over 14lbs already and I really find him too heavy in a sling now.

I am very lucky I know as she goes to nursery 2 days a week so I have baby time then (and she is apparently fine at nursery), so on "her" days I do focus on her but it doesnt seem enough for her.

I have 2 DDs one is almost 2.7, the other is almost 5 months. DD1 also became a lot more challenging when DD2 came along. She hasn't been aggressive with DD2 except on 2 or 3 occasions (a couple of biting incidents and one throwing of toy) but all the stuff you're saying is very familiar. She was:

• v clingy and kept pushing DH away ("you GO away, Mummy's going to do it etc...", telling me not to feed the baby etc)
• never, ever entertaining herself always wanting me to do x, y, z while feeding DD2
• waking up A LOT at night (I was often up 6 times between 11 and 7 with one or other of them)

I can't say it's 100% resolved but it has got a lot easier. Her sleeping is a lot better, she sleeps through most nights. There are far fewer tantrums (though she does still 'start up' whenever DD2 is really distressed and crying a lot). But basically, there is light at the end of the tunnel. I'd say enjoy the time you have alone with baby - great that she goes to nursery two days (wish I'd sorted that out before DD2 came along!) and don't feel bad about being irritable, it's inevitable when you're under strain like that - I felt like I spent my life snapping at DD1. It WILL get easier with time and before long she won't remember life without baby.

One other thing, you may be right about the help from Grannies etc, we had an au pair in the early days (who used to look after her when I was working from home before mat leave) and I was dreading her leaving. But when she did DD actually got a lot better, I think perhaps she'd felt a bit pushed away. So although it's hard doing it all myself 24/7 in some ways it's a bit improvement

thanks something

instinct tells me she resents sharing me with anyone at mo but will tolerate ds as she maybe understands he needs me (can they understand this?) but wont share me with dh, dm, mil etc but without them I cant do solo things with her

ds was crying in car and she was saying "no not YOU mumy i need you" which is really sad.

unfortunately she followed this by trying to get out of her car seat and screaming as i was driving down motorway, thats what is difficult and when I end up shouting at her