Help! 22 month old attacking little brother while feeding

[littletree]

My little boy is only 22 months old and I have recently had a second baby who is now 5 weeks old. Every time I feed the little one the older one feels left out and attacks the little one by either hugging too hard or biting, pinching, hitting, etc. I am at my wits end and feel hopeless. Days like these I really want to quit!!!! Any suggestions?

are you breastfeeding or bottle feeding?

dd2 is a bit older than your ds, but she snuggles up on thbe other side when i breastfeed dd3, and often brings a book as well. its abit of a balncing act, but we often have story time whilst i feed. then dd2 doesnt feel like dd3 is tajing all my attention.

Hi misdee-
I'm breastfeeding. I have tried the whole story thing but although he has always loved books he doesn't seem interested anymore. Sometimes I can get him to look at a book with me but his attention span is short and feeding a newborn takes ages! I have to confess to having cbeebies on all day long and he has become a telly addict. I am not proud of this but it seems the only thing that can hold his attention while I attend to the little one.

I can really sympathise Littletree. I have a 23mth old dd and a seven week old dd. The situation is exactly the same but yesterday she turned on me aswell. I feel hopeless and have been crying on dh shoulder. Stories, nursery rhymes with actions all don't work and I hate to let her watch too much tv.

dd and ds used to be exactly the same. the thing that helped most was giving dd (the older one) a baby doll and bottle so that she could feed her baby too. I know she's a girl but I find boys at that age like dolls too.

She also became a telly addict, but there's no harm in it - you can start weaning him off it again when baby is a bit older. Needs must when you have two such young children i say.

Beebies is the only thing that keeps you sane in the last months of pregnacy and first months of a new baby.

I think you need to emphasise how Big your boy is. He doesn't need mummy milk, he has proper milk (blue milk in our house). I also used to spend 10 minutes before a feed giving dd (2 when ds born) complete attention - doing jigsaws, dancing, building blocks - and then telling her someting really fun we would do together after ds had fed. Bubbles, play-doh, painting. But she needed to be really good and just watch TV whilst I fed ds.
And whilst I was feeding I played vocally with her, so if she was watching TV, I would ask her lots of questions about the programme. Another good one was getting her to fetch things, sometimes I'd bother to hide things for her, but most of teh time it would just be off teh top of my head. Then she felt like she was getting my full attention, even if I wasn't giving it to her physically.

Deal with expressions of physical violence to teh baby by diverting it rather than not allowing him to touch the baby. So show him how to stroke the baby, or tickle it's toes, rather than telling him not to touch.

HTH

hiya you could try having a special box of toys you only bring out when you breastfeed,making sure you tell him it is a very special box only for abig boy like him.have you tried getting him a treat.bribery works wonders.there is a 20 mth gap between my kids i found also if i changed both there nappies together and talked to them both in a baby voice sounds daft doesnt it but i had no jealousy at all.hope this is some help.

What really really helped me was a sling like this one . You can put baby in it and feed while you have the baby in there, but at the same time you still have your hands free to do everything you want to do with your older child. Also the baby is practically completely hidden in the sling, which sometimes leads to the older child "forgetting" that the baby is there. I can't recommend getting one highly enough!!!

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