help and advice needed...change in behaviour :(

[mathshoneybunny27]

Have recently had DD2 (12 weeks) and DD1 (3.8) has been pretty good so far..however I fear we may be experienecing delayed fallout. It started with early waking, usually because the baby woke her up (but then went back to sleep) which has been as early as 4.45 this week. She flatly refuses to go back to bed or even play in her room as she used now, now wakes us and baby, plays loudly outside bedroom , cries or eats toothpaste or whatever for attention. Now we also have hitting, biting, kicking (us, not baby) and also weeing on the floor for attention. Yesterday she also lied to me, said she wanted to play in her room and went up and shook the baby to wake her.

I am usually quite calm and objective but a) sleep depriviation b) husband tyring to be 'strict' and therefore constant conflict and c) we have a great relationship with clear boundaries and I'm quite upset by my friendly litle girl being all deceitful and spiteful.

Perspective, and advice needed please!

First up, this is normal.

Second, remember the mantra "this too will pass".

Thirdly, is there anyway you can park the baby and take elder DD out for a fun mummy/daughter afternoon? I think she is simply missing you. Nutty had a similar issue, I seem to recall, and this worked for her.

Fourthly, you are a teacher so I know you know this, but remember to praise her madly and enthusiastically in the event that she is actually nice to the baby or co-operative with you.

May the force be with you, my friend.

you are great, Boff, I've missed you.

Have tried to have fun time with elder DD on a regular basis, will keep going...

Praise...hmmm..have started a star chart which is going well but DH keeps scuppering it all by attempting to remove all stars for thing trivial to my mind. major part of the problem really is we disagree so much on how to handle DD.

maths - i'm totally with you on this. you dd is the same age as my ds. and he's been horrendous.

check out this thread. it seems to be quite common

I'm afraid to say that my dd also went a bit bonkers for quite a while after her baby brother was born. She was younger than yours (about 2 1/2), but she changed from being the most angelic, easy-going child to being pretty monsterous for about a year. Now she is fine again. Sibling rivalry combined with terrible twos / threes I guess. I think what you are experiencing is pretty normal.

IMO, the best thing to do is to try to be as nice and positive to your dd as you possibly can. I was particularly rubbish at this in my sleep deprived haze of the first few months. As I calmed down (as I got a bit more sleep), I found my dd calmed down too.

Good luck.

I think you have been given good advice here, but I also think that it is crucial that you and your DH agree on the boundaries of acceptable behaviour and rewards/punishments. If she senses tension and realises that she can cause conflict between the two of you by behaving badly then that will encourage her.

All sounds quite normal though.

hey purple - glad i'm not the only one. thanks neo - trying to be positive but also let her know that biting and hitting are decidely not ok. It's a fine balance...

niggle I'm struggling with that one. What do you think about the weeing on the floor issue? hard to tell if deliberate but i would wager it probably is. DH favours punishment, I'd ignore it. Middle ground/compromise ??

I just think if you punish alot and leap on everything you will actually up the stakes for her and encourage the behaviour. It's full on attention if you're being told off, after all, and she'll take that if it keeps your attention on her and not the baby.

Make sure you're not pressuring her to love the baby or anything; acknowledge to her that the baby is annoying sometimes and that you understand how she feels. We all need to be understood. But do tell her the baby loves her, watches her, whatever you can see happening.

So I'd say yes give sanctions for really bad stuff like hitting etc, but keep totally calm if you can so as to downplay the attention on it. Wee-ing on the floor - I would pay as little attention to that as humanly possible. Make it something utterly unrewarding to her in terms of attention.

Agree with slowreading regarding the weeing. She almost certainly wants a reaction. My DD tried this and as she was able to remove her lower clothing I would just calmly tell her to take her wet things off and put them in the washing basket. Then I'd dress her with as little fuss as possible. I also didn't necessarily jump straight away. I didn't leave her long, but a minute or two extra so that she could see that it didn't generate an immediate response.

I'm sure she'll be back to her lovely self soon enough.

many thanks for sage advice. Lovely day today - we went for a walk, got soaked, and saw a rainbow. Now I'm an atheist, but.....