18 month old scared of new baby

[0lgaDaPolga]

I have an 18 month old son and a 3 day old new baby. We came home from the hospital 2 days ago and my toddler has been terrified of the new baby so far. He won’t come anywhere near me when I’m holding him and cries when he makes any noises. Has anyone else experienced this and any advice on what I could do to help. I’m so sad I feel like I’ve ruined his life.

You haven't ruined his life and congratulations! It's such early days. My DD was distraught when she came home to find baby DS. She screamed and cried whenever I went near him. I felt like I couldn't pick him up! In the end I just got on with it, she did get over it quite quickly, but she wouldn't go near him for at least 4 weeks. Like you say, it was like she was scared of him. If she got near him my accident she'd squeak and run away! It's funny to look back on, but was awful at the time! It helped that i have her a biscuit every time that i fed him for the first few days. I tried to keep things as normal as possible for her. They're so adaptable, it will be fine.

Sorry I don't have any experience of this but I do have an 18m old and can imagine how awful this is for you.

My first port of call would be to phone your health visitor team. This is just the sort of thing they will have experience of and they should be able to make a visit to you to give you some advice.

Easier said than done but it will be important for you to be really patient about this and not let your frustration/upset apparent to your toddler.

I might try putting baby somewhere accessible like on the floor, sit next to the baby and then engage with DS so that he gets used to the idea of baby being there while you get on with normal stuff (like playing or reading) with your DS but with baby in close proximity to normalise it all.

Also some books about children becoming big brothers/sisters might be good.

You haven’t ruined his life. The little chap is just a baby and is experiencing new emotions. He is just trying to work out in his own way what has happened and how this affects him. He will settle down and love the baby. Just give him time to adjust.
Congratulations!

I have 17 months between mine and I remember being so upset and thinking I had brought ds’ World crashing down when we brought dd home. Ds was distraught, wouldn’t come near her or me and just looked heart broken, which in turn made me distraught. If I remember correctly we didn’t force anything, dd had brought a toy home from hospital for ds. As the days went on he started looking at her in the Moses basket, and after about a week he started giving her a very gentle prod and taking more notice. He would still run off of she cried but after about a fortnight he would hug her and give her a wee kiss. They are absolutely best of friends now (7 and 9) and both laugh at the pictures of the early days of ds looking terrified!

Give it time, it’s only early days and your eldest is still only a baby himself really. It will get better and you really haven’t ruined his life.

Thanks everyone, these are really lovely and helpful replies. I’m just taking it one day at a time at the moment. I think the baby blues/hormone crash combined with sleep deprivation isn’t helping matters.

Ds is still quite upset and scared but we are doing our best to give him lots of attention and keep everything as normal as possible for him. We had a horrible morning yesterday where my husband was asleep after being up with the baby a lot at night and my son came up to me holding his brio train set and wanted me to build it but I couldn’t because I was feeding the baby. The baby then chucked up over both of us so I had to pop upstairs to get a change of clothes. My little boy doesn’t usually mind being left for a minute so I thought it would be ok but he ran after me up the stairs, crying still holding out his train set for me to build looking absolutely heartbroken. I know it will get easier but moments like that are absolutely breaking me at the moment. I’m just really mourning the relationship we used to have and it’s so hard seeing him upset.