Help! 5yo ds hurting baby

[SilverSixpence]

Can anyone help with how to handle DS's behaviour? He has found it difficult with adjusting to new baby and in the beginning gave her a few hard pinches and bit her twice hard he has improved a lot and is usually affectionate but without warning will pinch/squeeze her. he has just bitten her again (not v hard but enough to make her cry). I feel he is old enough to know better now and want it to stop! We have tried telling him off, sending him to his room, taking away toys/tv time. Also tried giving him more attention but he still carries on. Any experience of this and what can I do

Don't leave them unsupervised! I found that at 5 yo, a child's level of knowledge and their degree of impulse control are two very different things. You don't say how old the baby is, if he's just realising that she's 'here the stay' then there can be more issues. I'd say he's still feeling insecure and/or jealous, so if he thinks he can get away with something when you're not looking then he'll try it. You need to be clear about him needing to be gentle and how wrong biting is, but you need to give him lots of reassurance as well. With a 5 year age gap it's easy to expect too much in terms of emotional maturity/acceptance of a situation because they seem so big compared to their sibling.

Make a fun reward chart and get him to help you with the stickers...?
My DS covered his with dinosaur stickers... then put it up where he can see it... make 2/3 simple rules to follow every day one of which being kind and gentle to the baby or something, with a reward to work towards written in on the chart for each week... week 1-5 can be a toy at the end of the week (you don't have to spend too much) and then every 2 weeks it can be a kinder egg instead or something.... and then space out the toys more etc....if he gets 5 star stickers in a row - or whatever you decide - he gets the reward written on the chart. I know it sounds like it won't work... but my DS took to his chart like mad... I was so surprised.... he can see the days... what he has to do to get a star and he can see what he will get for following the rules.... the visual aid really really helps.... my DS is 5 too and we started the chart in Jan this year as a last resort... wish we had tried it sooner!!! Make the rules really really straight forward.... Good Luck sweetheart xxxx

Also... sorry if I am going on too much.... I tell my DS we are a 'team' me and him, when we are at home or at the shops, and we work as a team to tidy together and do the dishes etc. I try and make him feel like he is really important, and that I can't do things without his help... at the shops he has the job of getting each item from the list from the shelves etc. and putting them in the basket. I try and involve him in EVERYTHING... tiring I know... massive positive praise for anything he does right... even sitting quietly for 5 minutes while I am on the phone... I almost throw a party for him LOL....

Thank you, the advice is v helpful! Esp about impulse control, perhaps I am expecting too much of him. They aren't left unsupervised but he will often be giving her a hug one minute and then will have pinched her a few seconds later! Dd is over 7 months now.

Dd is over 7 months now.

A lot of people find that their older dc go through a phase of poor interaction around this time, he's realised that she's here to stay (and developing a personality of her own). Diffuse, distract, pre-empt...you're likely to be dealing with this in various forms for a while yet (especially when she's becoming mobile and making a bee line for whatever he's doing/building/playing with and wrecking it for him).