simultaneous love and aggression towards new sibling

[Rents]

Hello,

My 2yr 7month DD is exhibition some slightly peculiar behaviour towards her new DB (6 weeks).

She loves her DB and has never show any hostility towards him apart from this odd quirk, which is hard to describe.

After making a direct statment or show or affection towards her DB she will, immediately after or sometimes at the same time, clap her hands or stamp her feet really aggressively. It’s really hard to describe but it feels/ looks like she’s got mixed emotions and would quite like to hit or stamp on him!! I’m not sure if she’s even aware that she’s doing it or has aware of any anger towards him.

Has anyone else experienced anything like this before?

She is generally a very happy and caring person but does have some controlling tendencies (but don’t all toddlers!)

I apologise for all the typos 😣

Ah poor wee thing. I'm not at this point yet but watching with interest cos our baby is due to arrive next month and I'm bracing myself for DD's reaction.

But from how you describe it, it sounds like she's just expressing her perfectly reasonable mixed emotions, as you say. 'I love him (what she says)...but he also makes me really angry (what she expressed physically through stamping)'. I think it sounds pretty sophisticated, actually, that she's come up with this way of expressing and processing her opposing feelings!

Another interpretation is that she's sayig what she thinks you want to hear (yes, of course I love my baby brother), but physically expressing how she really feels (angry, like she might want to stamp on him!). Which again, I think is pretty sophisticated. If you think that's the case, maybe she needs a bit of help expressing those less 'acceptable' feelings, with a bit of 'I wonder if sometimes you feel a bit cross about ...' from you.

Keep us posted, I'm very interested in this at the mo!