How do I deal with my 3 yr old's jealousy of his 1 yr old sister?

[nellieellie]

getting desperate. He has zero tolerance of her. He looks at her as if she is the mud on his shoe if she touches him, resents her very existence to the point where he gets cross if she is laughing or making any noise. I have tried everything. Giving him one to one time with me, involving him in nsppy changing, bathing etc, trying to do things together they both enjoy. He will now hit her or knock her over the moment my back is turned. I always put him on the naughty step and he will say sorry, but then does same thing a few mins later. I can understand how it changed his world when she was born but did hope things would get better and now getting worse. Any ideas?

Do you get chance to have 'quality time' (for want of a better phrase) just with your ds. I'm thinking of things like snuggling up together and reading stories whilst the younger one naps, little trips out with just the two of you at weekends, etc. Something that makes him feel special, older, important.

This probably isn't great for me and DH, but every day he is off, I spend pretty much all of it ith DD1 (2.10), stopping only for BFs. This seems to 'refresh' her feelings toward DD2 for the week to follow.

Thanks MuffinMclay and AccidentalMum. I do spend quite a lot of quality time with ds - DD has an earlier bath and bed routine so every night DS gets bathed - usually by DH, and then read to on our bed by both of us snuggled up - he is always my lovely little boy again at the time! I have no-one to leave dd with to spend one to one with DS but until recently actually paid someone for 2 mornings a week to come and look after DD so that both got one to one. I would take DS out or go to groups. at weekends we tend to do stuff together but maybe we should try "splitting up". The thing is in some ways I think just doing stuff with DS almost makes him resent it more when DD is around - I am trying to so things that involve them both so he realises that he can have a good time with DD there but is diff given the age difference.

Is he just 3 or nearly 4?

nellieellie, you sound like you're trying so many good things already it's hard to know what to suggest! I have a ds 4.2 and a dd 1.9 and they are also quite volatile with each other. Ds pushes dd if she comes near his toys and dd on occasion provokes ds and has even bitten him a few times. Perhaps mine are both a bit older than your 2. I have found that it helps now dd is nearer 2 than 1 and is good at walking etc. There are things they can do together now. They dance round together and dd likes to immitate ds. They climb in a box together. So despite all the friction (and there is lots!) there are some good bits to offset it. Like you I keep their bedtime routines separate which takes an age but at least ds can get some quality time for reading books etc. Hope that helps, probably not...