Toddler rejects baby brother...help

[busybarb]

My 2 1/2 year old won't let her 9 month old baby brother play near her, touch her, she even flips out when he makes loud baby sounds. She'll kick him out of her way or push him away. Any advice?

She's probably feeling pushed out in favour of the baby.

Lots of attention, praising her when she's nice to the baby, one-to-one time when you can - she needs reassurance that you still love her now that you have a "new" baby.

give her more attention when she is being good. ignore roughness with the baby - i mean try not to tell her off, instead say "gentle" and show her, praise her when she does it right. try to remove baby from anything too bad subtly - like whoops he needs a nappy change, rather than you are rescuing him from her, iyswim. Buy her gifts from the baby. Get visitors to pay her attention. etc etc.

She's only a baby herself, so it's a hard adjustment. Plus I found - there's 15 months between mine - that ds1 was fine when ds2 was a tiny baby, but when he got mobile, that's when ds1 started to resent him more.

It passed. It's normal.

I had to resort to bribery as dd was hitting ds primarly to get attention I think - punishing her made b*gger all difference, just upset me and her. It all started when ds got mobile, she'd been lovely with him until he started crawling and getting into her toys. I'm afraid I ended up promising her chocolate if she stopped molesting him. He's 11 months old now and she has got a lot better - I praise her like mad if she's good with him and have told her that she has to teach him how to walk and teach him to do animal noises etc.

It's a difficult stage and if all else fails then a playpen to seperate them if you are going to the loo or whatever may be a safest bet.

1 on 1 time is a bit limited overall cuz I've got a 4 1/2 year old as well.... was thinking of getting a couple of gifts from baby for her

I do know someone who if the baby was hurt/pushed by the older one completely ignored the older one and gave the baby lots of lovely fuss and it worked very quickly!!!

If I can say, without coming across wrong (I hope), 1:1 really really helps them. Really have a good think how you can build it into the day for each child. Do you have anyone who can take the others at times, even 15 minutes in another room? Or bedtime 1:1??

baby is going to be an early walker so toddler annoyed big time because he wants to interact with her so much more. She and baby never really did hit it off but I think it's because she has a "loner" type of personality...happy to play independently and in control of her own thing. Baby is now capable of physically getting in her way. thanks liath for reminding me about involving her is baby's development, like asking her to help me teach him things like walking and talking.

DS1 was like this. He was very jealous. It passed within a few months. Now they're best friends (when they're not fighting ).

It's a bloody nightmare, though - I know I over-react to it but the urge to protect the baby just kicks in. Plus he is such a placid easy going chap and dd is your average complicated challenging (if adorable) toddler. . Good to hear from people who have got through it and seen it get better!

The one-to-one does help, I ask dd what she wants to do when ds is having a nap and we do "special" things like moon sand or messy play that we can't do if he's around.