Any ideas to address sibling displacement?

[fifitot]

DD is 4. New baby has arrived. She is clearly not happy as behaviour has worsened - attention seeking, wilful, ignoring us, pushing boundaries, messing with the baby.....stuff I expected but don't really know how to deal with.

We are trying hard not to exclude her, to make her still feel special etc but it's a struggle.

How do others cope? Any ideas? Thanks.

One-on-one time with her. It's actually easier to do than it sounds. Especially on the weekends. Have her dad take her swimming. And you take her to the park while the new baby has a nap (with DH watching her of course!). Or bake some cookies/cake while baby naps. I find it better to be actually out of the house so you can focus on her. We find that DS1 behaves much better after he has had some special time with either one of us. Good luck, it does get better with time!

Thanks. It is so hard isn't it? She is having some one to one but mainly with dad so need to do more as she is most attached to me.

I can't wait until she just gets used to him!

Thanks.

Can you not get her to 'help' with the baby?? It may reinforce the idea that she is special and a 'big girl' who is not longer a baby.

Thankfully I didn't have this problem with DS1. He was four when DS2 was born too but I would get him to help with DS2 such as helping to 'find' a nappy or wipes for DS2 and I used to make a big thing about DS2 being such a baby who needed help and DS1 such a big boy who was a great help to me (and to be fair he was).

I made a point of asking DS1 if he needed anything such as a drink etc etc before I became involved with DS2eg bfing so there wasn't a problem with DS1 feeling put out waiting for a drink because DS2s needs came 1st at that time.

As the other posters say we also made time to ensure there was 1 on 1 time with DS1 and we could do 'big boy' things with him that we couldn't do when DS2 was a around.

My dd HATED ds when he was born, she pretended he wasn't there and started to act like a baby, wanting fed, dressed etc...

In all honesty I think she still dislikes him a bit (11 months on) but she's now fiercely protective of him. She can be horrible to him but nobody else can, it's very familiar as my big sister was like this.

I made sure I always did something with her while ds slept, packet fairy cakes or even going to feed the ducks. She does all her art stuff on a high up table so ds can't reach and keeps her things separate.

The other thing that I know means allot to her is me doing bedtime while dh looks after ds. We read a story, have a cuddle and sing songs. On the nights that dh isn't home and ds is in the room with us during bedtime, she usually wakes during the night.

It does get easier and one day your dd will start playing with your ds and you'll almost choke on your wine tea.

I look forward to choking on my wine confuzzle!

Actually we had some special mummy time last night which helped a bit. Am just waiting it out.............This too will pass! (Is this the mumsnet motto????)

Oh yes!