3 year old hurting little sister

[Evelyn06]

My 3 year old boy seems to be jealous of his 13 month old sister. This has been since she was about 4 months old. He pushes, hits, bites, etc, and also takes away any toy that she's playing with. We tell him that he must not hurt her and are currently using the naughty step as a punishment, but it doesn't seem to work on him as he will often hurt her again not long after coming off and saying sorry.

We praise him when he plays nicely and does good things with her, and we feel we give him lots of attention and praise.

If this rings any bells, he's also copying her behaviour more and more, so I'm assumimg it's all down to jealousy.

I can't leave them alone for a second, so I'm finding it difficult to get anything done when both of them are awake.

He is generally a well behaved boy with other children (he goes to nursery a couple of mornings a week), it's just with his sister that he's like this.

Does anyone have any advice? Any help would be very much appreciated.

Sorry to hear about that, sounds rubbish. Sounds like you're doing lots of teh right things already. No magic answers here, but just wondered if he was thriving on the negative attention after being mean to her. I would probably:

1. Pick her up immediately he has been mean to her and fuss over her loads, completely ignoring him.

1. Ask him to do things for her quite a bit, eg. fetch a nappy, give her her special toy, and then praise him in a rediculously ott way if he does it. Lots of kisses and cuddles and "you're such a lovely big brother!"

1. Spend quality time with him while DD asleep. Make cakes/ playdough/ lego. Real focussed one to one time, even when you're desperate to do the house work! This is more improtant! I used to have "mummy and DD time" on a Saturday morning. We took some story books, went to the local cafe and cuddled up on a sofa and read stories with a juice drink! Found that just 20 minutes changed her behaviour for the rest of the day.

1. Loads of kisses and cuddles, often babies get so much of this and siblings feel left out.

Good luck!

Thank you so much for your advice Jezabelle. I will definitely try your ideas.

I was about to reply to you post but Jezabelle has said everything i would have...

Good luck, hope you start to see an improvement soon :0)

Thanks NannyTreeSally :)

Great ideas from Jezabelle.

I have a 2.10 year old dd1 and 6 month old dd2 and dd1 does get jealous, and rubs toys in dd2's face and tries to hit her and kick her a little, only gently but enough to make her cry and get a reaction. I was using the naughty step but found it didn't work. In fact it made dd1 more resentful of dd2. So now I say nothing, distract, ask dd1 to do stuff for me/the baby and try to do what Jezabel says, spend more one to one time with dd1. Once dd1 did actually hurt dd2 who cried quite loudly, and dd1 actually said sorry off her own bat and gave her a kiss, so I think (hope!) as she gets older she'll realise more and more the consequences of her actions and that it hurts!

Thanks petisa, it's helpful to know what's working/not working for you. Think we will give up with the naughty step as well (I thought it worked with every child, so glad to hear I'm not the only one!)Good luck with your little ones too :)

The naughty step never worked here either.

DS now 4, can choose extra minutes in the bath if he's been good or an extra story.
We found an incentive works better than a punishment.

Also special time just us 2 works well.

Thanks for the extra info Groovymoves. Will try these tips. :)

It will stop, it's fairly classic behaviour; older siblings (particularly if they are 2-3 when a new baby comes) are nearly always jealous. ANd understandably, really - from their point of view they feel they have been replaced or usurped. But they grow out of it as long as the parents are sensible, and all the above tips should work fine.