2.4 yr old with new baby sister - constant tantrums and naughty behaviour - what can I do?

[nzbabies]

Hi, can you please give advice about how I can respond to my DS? I know its understandable that he is reacting to having a baby sister, but what is the best way to deal with it? He is just pushing boundaries, asking for consequences (eg playing with the radiator when I told him not to) and bursting into rages and tears every 5 mins when he doesn't get what he wants. I feel so guilty because I am enjoying my new baby but not enjoying him like I used to - its a horrible feeling - probably normal as well I know. I am giving him individual attention when I can and reassurring him how much he is loved. But what to do about the deliberately rebellious behaviour? Another example is refusing to get dressed or change his nappy. Thanks - would love some advice!

not sure if I have any advice, how old is dd? ds1 was 19months when ds2 was born at christmas time, so ds1 was lavished with attention for first two weeks by family and then had a real shock when dh went back to work and it was just the 3 of us, I learnt quickly how to discipline him with ds2 lathed on as he'd play up when I was feeding, I also found that expressing and dh putting ds2 to bed worked well as I hadn't realised before ds2 I'd always done ds1's bedtime and then suddenly dh was doing it, it gave us some lovely 1:1 and time when I actually enjoyed his company - completely understand that you might not like ds too much at the moment we also got out of the house every day to a toddler group so ds could be entertained, he seemed to behave better out than at home - or maybe I didn't notice as much

pick your battles, I learnt to ignore a lot of what ds did for an easy life and he soon gave up on some of the attention seeking tantrums, I only solved the refusal to get dressed by getting ready to leave house and giving him choice of getting dressed and coming with us or staying at home, not sure about nappies as he was trained quite early

good luk with it can only sympathise about how frustrating it is, hope someone else comes along to give you advice too x

it is perfectly understandable for behaviourr to be challenging / regress when there's a second baby....

baby him if he seems to want that

give him one to one attention when you can

try to enlist his help in some care tasks for the pesky baby (please could you bring me the clean nappy ds1 etc)

ignore as much as you possibly can the difficult behaviour

praise praise praise the smallest bit of "good" behaviour...

does it really matter if he doeswn't get dressed? is it worth all the hassle? what would happen if you said let me know when you're ready to put your clothes on and i'll help you?.....

Agree get him to help out as much as possible.

Try and put the baby to bed first and make a point of telling him he can stay up later because he's a big boy.

Thanks everyone for your responses and advice - sorry, only now got to read them. It is comforting to hear how the behaviour is normal, so not to get too stressed by expecting him to behave well, eg when he refuses to get dressed.

Oh, and DD is only 3 weeks old.