3.5 year old just won't leave 9 month old alone

[blondie72]

I am at my wits end! Normally my daughter (3.5 years old) is at nursery/pre-school so she is not at home all day terrorising my 9 month old. Currently all she wants to do all day is play with him. To her, he is the best toy imaginable as he is so interactive. She drags him around the house, dropping him occasionally, pesters him and wakes him up if he falls asleep. I have tried buying new toys to keep her busy but nothing compares to being with him. She is not nasty to him (no biting, punching, hitting etc) she just wants to mother him/smother him all day long. I feel as if I have tried everything to stop it and at the moment I am really not enjoying being with her. Does anyone have any suggestions as to how I can make this stop? We do something every day (have her friends round/go to park/meet her other friends) so I am trying to keep her as busy as possible but as soon as we walk through the door she just cannot leave him alone. Please help me before I lose it!

What do you do when she wakes him up or drags him around?

Have you talked to her about it? Is she doing anything that could hurt him? It's sweet she loves him but at 3.5 she might be old enough to be reasoned with?

How about giving her specific tasks to do with him (choosing his clothes? Handing you wipes?) and encourage her to show him things rather than handle him (do "shows" for him? Show him how she eats/use her toys?)

If she's hurting him then maybe it wouldn't be the worst thing to get a telling off if you've already told her calmly not to?

Someone in the same boat as you will be here soon to advise.

I have tried everything except reward chart, which we are going to install this weekend. When we tell her off she looks at us and just continues doing it. It is complete disobedience and she believes that she knows best. She answers back and believes that whatever she is doing is for his benefit. Today my husband spend 10 minutes with her in her room explaining (again) why she shouldn't pick him up and drag him and the first thing she did when she came out of the room was just that. We couldn't believe it! I feel like I'm continually telling her off/sending her to her room/giving her time out, but then I feel guilty because she is not actually doing anything malicious to him. Just (s)mothering him. Quite often he enjoys the attention but when he has had enough and starts crying it makes her want to mother him more!! She has always been a very affectionate child and at nursery they moved her up to the next age group as soon as she could walk because she kept hugging the babies (too hard) and then falling over and squashing them. She even went through a phase recently of hurting the other children at nursery just so she cold cuddle them and give them a kiss. Is there a reason for all this?

You need to intercept before she picks him up/drags him.

Not wanting to sound like supernanny here, but if you're just telling her off and nothing else, she will just carry on.

I bet this has become a way to get attention from you - could you try physically removing her from the situation, and not paying any attention to it? With all the chats and telling off she's getting a lot of one-on-one attention from you.. Remove her (or your DS) without saying anything and try and distract onto something else?

Not sure a reward chart would be appropriate for this - like you said, she's not actually doing anything wrong, as such.

DS is the same in regards to not being able to do what he is told sometimes. The urge to do it just overrides the reasoning not to, and they just don't have the impulse control at that age.

I'd also go for the smother-her-with-attention-approach (someone on here mentioned it and I was very but a lot of toddler behaviour is about attention seeking).

When your 9mo is napping or quiet elsewhere do everything you can with her. Get down on the floor with her, make her SICK of you. Lots of cuddles/tickling etc, just spend as much time really interacting with her as physically possible. If it is an attention thing, then she might start to calm down with it?

Just a thought :)

Don't explain. Next time she does it say in a really cross and disapproving voice, no. I agree stop all the chatting and explaining and just show your disapproval of her behaviour.