Toddler cries when baby cries help!!!!

[Massey1990]

My boy is 2.5years old and very sensitive little thing! Along came our daughter 6 weeks ago and the first 2 weeks she hardly cried but since then she cries a lot more only when hungry or she has trapped wind and my son screams and gets into a state everytime she crys I am loosing my mind!! It's not for attention as when she isn't crying he's happy for me to feed/change/cuddle her no problem! He gets into such a state there's no talking to him and I have to stop baby crying 1st so that he does!? Help! Anyone else been in this situation?!

DS1 got very upset when DS2 cried. Although he was a bit older (4) when DS2 was born and is autistic so a different senario but this might help.

You've probably done this but we used to explain (a lot) that babies cry because they can't talk like us. So when they are hungry they can't tell us so they cry etc. When DS2 was crying we would calmly tell DS1 why - eg he's crying because he's got a full nappy , look now he's stopped crying because I've changed his nappy.

However probably the biggest help was putting ear defenders on DS1 when DS2 began to cry. He was then able to tolerate the noise a lot more and it made a huge difference. I don't know if your DS would wear them or whether it would make a difference for him but it might be worth exploring.

We had this with the dog - she'd get distraught every time the baby cried. It did wear off eventually, so hopefully it's the same for humans too!