Why is my toddler so mean to 7mth baby?

[terriblytired]

I have a DS1 a 2year old who is constantly picking on DS2 who is 7mths. He bites, kicks, scatches, pulls his hair etc.. and I really don't know how to handle it. My kneejerk reaction is always to pull him off and shout at him but it doesn't make any difference. DS2 has learnt to scream very loudly when anything happens but this means he screams all day and that makes DS1 worse he then gets more and more aggresive...please help.

IS it jealousy do you think? How was he when your ds2 was born?

He was lovely to him for a first few months but now DS2 is more active and the situation is just getting worse and worse. Yes he might be jealous he is very clingly with me.

How well does your eldest speak. Is there anyway of sitting with him and asking him why he does it?

Because it isn't his baby, he doesn't care about it's welfare the way you do, and at a guess he is jealous? If he gets shouted at a lot, he may feel like baby is getting all the cuddles and he is getting all the shouting?

Difficult when they are being horrible to an innocent baby though.

NO I'm afraid not. He only started speaking about 5 weeks ago and it's still pretty poor - he still doesn't say Mummy or Daddy at the moment!

focus on what he can do rather than what he can't.
its a bit like learning a new language like you see your knee-jerk reaction is to shout. its about taking all the negatives away and working with postitives (all the negative vocab is taken away ie.'don't spill your juice' would become 'hold the cup with both hands, that's right good!'
so you might say in a postitive tone when ds1 goes to get physical 'ds2 likes being massaged, like this (demonstrate say with a big circle motion on his back) then lots of reassuring praise 'see how ds2 likes it - he's smiling at you, good circles ds1'
there is a brilliant book called \link{http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1853406309/qid=1141155835/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_3_1/203-9623148-8076733\siblings without rivalry}
and the authors website is \link{http://www.fabermazlish.com\fabermazlish}
can't recommend highly enough - life changing!

Shouting, although just a reaction on your part probably reinforces the behaviour. He isn't getting as much of your attention as he would like - but if he hurts ds2 you immediately focus on him. What I would do is try not to react and move yourself and the baby into another room just for a minute and don't make eye contact with him. I'm sure it is jealousy - completely normal. Perhaps you could try to make him see his younger brother in a better light - perhaps buy him a present and say it's a present from ds2.

Has your 7 month old just started crawling/sitting? Or another developmental 'first'? We found that our then 2 year old ds1 was MUCH more horrible to his little brother whenever he learnt to do anything new! It happened consistently when ds2 learnt to sit, crawl and walk and each spell of horribleness lasted a few weeks. I thought things would always be awful and used to get really upset that ds1 hated ds2 so much - but now ds1 is 4 and ds2 is nearly 2 and they're getting on soooooo much better - there's even the occasional hug! As ds2's been walking a while and talking, I think ds1 feels he's more of a person and he's started to accept it.

I know it feels like a long wait, but if you can just hang on for a while and hopefully they'll come out the other side as friends - or at least partners in crime which is what our two are turning into!