need major help with discipline of 1 & 2.7 yr old

[suzi2]

2.7 yr old first... very jealous of his little sister. Likes to push her around a lot. He plays rough with her but we can tell he has intent to hurt her. He likes to leap on her and squash her and things. Whenever they're together he hits, kicks and pushes her for the slightest thing. She howls and cries (bit of a drama queen!) and quite often DS then cries and wants a cuddle too. so I cuddle them both, with them screaming. Then for no reason, DS slaps her and me in the face again. So I can't cuddle him when she's upset! used to use the naughty square but he'd be living on it at the moment. Today I was losing it with him, really angry, shouting, telling him to go away etc. It made no impact and just made me feel crap. I try hard to spend plenty of 1 to 1 time with him when she's napping in the morning and he's a delight. Well, unless the cat is there to torture, hit and torment!

DD, just turned a year so I know there might not be anything I can do... she's now hitting her brother back. I can't send her to the naughty square so I just tell her off, more so DS sees it. She's in at everything and is a complete destroyer. Unfortunately that includes whatever DS is playing with. Is there any way I can get her to understand 'no'? I think she understands and choses to ignore... DS was very well behaved at that age!

I seem to spend every day keeping them apart, stopping them fighting or dealing with the bruises and tears. I'm worried that in the 2 seconds I nip to the loo, one of them will get seriously injured as DS likes to put his hands around DDs throat when she's lying down or hit her with large toys over the head. I do try to never leave them alone together even for 2 seconds but sometimes it's just not feasible.

Any tips?

I only wish I did have some tips as I'm going through nearly exactly the same thing with my two right now.

Dd1 is 2.10 and hits/pushes/pinches her sister and generally rough houses pretending its play but I'm not convinced. She also back chats to me, demand, refuses requests and talks in a horrible loud growly voice when not getting her way (usually saying "now" or "mine" or the like).

Dd2 is 11m and the same as yours, into everything and especially wrecking the games of dd1, though to be fair I think she is just trying to join in. I'm lucky that she doesn't hit and is a happy wee soul but just work, as they are at this age. She also doesn't sleep much so poor dd1 doesn't get too much 1 to 1 time.

Hope someone comes along with a few tips soon!

Nice to know I'm not alone bobblehead. I've been wondering where I went wrong as DS was generally ok to deal with. I thought I had it sussed! I'm aware though that the way I do things now might shape how he is in the future and I'm sure shouting at him etc isn't the way!

Thankful that DD does finally take a nap in the morning

Hi, my dd1 is 3.5 and dd2 is 20months. We have a similar problem.
DD2 scratches at dd1's face (though probably definatley provoked) as dd1 does get 'in her face'.
IMO even 1 year olds know what no is, my dd2 would know when she'd been naughty and start to cry before I'd even said anything.
Try and stick to the same rules as your doing, even if your dd doesn't understand the naughty square - your ds needs to know that both of them have to play together otherwise consequences. Could you perhaps seperate them slightly when doing tasks only suitable for one- we sit at the kitchen table for dd1's jigsaws, whilst dd2 plays with her blocks to keep her amused. i give dd2 a bowl and a wooden spoon aswell when making cakes (empty though) .
Hope this helps.

Have you tried putting the youngest one in a play pen if you need to leave the room briefly? Then at least they are seperated.

Your eldest might be old enough to be motivated by a sticker chart maybe? Some sort of small reward for be nice/playing nice with his sister?

Best of luck with it, my two get on okay together so far, but the youngest is yet to get mobile and into his big brother's toys....then it's bound to get very interesting!

sorry by the way dd2 is in her highchair when we are doing jogsaws to keep her out of the way!!

Thanks. DD would freak out being locked up or forced to sit in her highchair while DS and I do something. She wants to be on the move all the time - she's been an early mover and into DSs stuff for a long time. He used to be really good with her and give her her own toys and just take his back, but since she's been walking he sees her as more of a threat I think. I try to get DS to play with things at the table but he doesn't want to. It's almost as if he wants DD to join in, but doesn't want her to muck around. Or wants her to break his jigsaw so he has an excuse to hit her?

Looks like we're all living on the naughty step for a while... It's horrible, I just feel that everything is so negative all the time. Well, we do get a lovely glimmer of nice things now and then. Like DD taking DS his favourite dummy. Or DS offering DD a crisp. They're few and far between though.

My DS is 1 and my DD is 3 1/2. Like your DD, my DS has suffered at the hands of his older sibling - hits, pushes, you name it. It's recently become a lot better though and I think there are a couple of reasons for this.

Firstly, DD is just older now. At 2 1/2 she changed from an exceptionally sweet natured, gentle little thing into a bit of a monster. This coincided with DS being born but I also think it was just down to a developmental stage where she wanted to become more independent and she did this by pushing the boundaries. All her friends changed into little terrors at around the same time. Six months on, all of them are now much calmer and can be reasoned with.
Secondly, what really worked for us was going completely over-board on catching DD being good. She got praised for absolutely everything and I tried to make the praise really specific e.g. "Fantastic DD, you're eating your food with your fork". I found that her behaviour began to improve significantly when she was getting lots and lots and lots of praise. I was probably saying something nice approximately every one or two minutes.s

If there was nothing obvious to praise, then I started doing a kind of running commentary of what she was doing to show that I was noticing her e.g. "Oh you've picked up a yellow brick, and now you're putting it on top of the blue brick, and now you've got a red brick and are putting it behind the curtain etc" Very, very dull but she seemed to love it.

Thirdly, if DD did something violent towards DS, instead of giving her the benefit of the doubt (did she hit him or did he just topple over etc), I immediately gave her a time out for three mins. Because there was absolutely no way she would stay on a naughty step, I just put her in the hallway and shut the door. When I got her back in, I would try to praise her or start the running commentary as soon as possible (within a minute or two) to make sure we were back on the right track.

Of course, what worked for me may not work for you because of different personalities and circumstances. I'm really sorry you are having such a hard time at the moment.

That sounds very helpful neolara, I will definately try the running commentary as I think dd1 would love that.

I can really relate to your situation Suzi as dd2 is also an early mover and not someone I can confine to a highchair even for meals! I too have glimmers of what can be and its lovely but I think dd1 is just in a horrible phase and dd2 an annoying one!(for dd1 anyway). I always feel better when friends with toddlers without siblings come over and thier 2 year old reacts to dd2 much the same as dd1 does, although without the violence fortunately!

Hi I also have a 2.7 year old and an 11 month old and we are having exactly the same problems. I shall be watching this thread with interest!

Suzi2 and bobblehead - I am sure you do it already but make sure you try and give your eldest plenty of one on one time. Recently we took DS1 to a theme park for the day while my mum looked after DS2. We made a really big deal about how DS1 was having a special day with mummy and daddy and he really liked that. We have told him he has to be a good boy and gentle to DS2 if he wants another special day out. Not working so far though

I struggle with one to one time as we have no family near us and friends have children the same age already. Plus dd2 still breastfeeds LOTS and has separation anxiety.
I am going to do a dance class with dd1 on Sat mornings though so that could be our special time.

I was so smug about what a great age gap 19 months is! Looks like I'll be eating my words in a few months time (ds 2.1, dd 5mo)...

Thanks for the advice everyone. We also waxed lyrical about the greatness of an 18 month gap lol. Mind you, I'd far prefer to have all this with a sturdy 1 yr old than a delicate baby in the house and a 2.5 yr gap!

I'm trying to be more positive with him when he's not being naughty and not explaining a lot and trying to reason with him when he is. He knows what he's doing is wrong. So it's strict naughty square. He's coming down the with cold (AGAIN! arrgghh, what is it about this time of year???) and maybe that's made him worse.

Totally agree with neolara. Sounds like your ds is desperate for your attention. I would pointedly ignore him being naughty, if he hits your dd say no and turn your back on him or exclude him in some way and make it clear that you and dd don't want to play with him if he is going to be naughty. Trickier with your dd but she will pick up that good behaviour gets rewards and attention even at this age.

Not easy to see it this way when you're in the middle of it though...

No I agree, he does just want attention and is jealous of attention DD gets. The main problem is there really is no way I can give him more attention. he gets me all to himself for an hour or two when she naps in the morning. Both nap in the afternoon. And when DH comes home he gets me or DH to himself too. In between times we're sometimes at my mums so he gets my, or my mums attention exclusively.

I do kind feel sorry for him. I guess it's just a new 'phase' and adjustment for us all.