16 month introduction to new baby sister - ADVICE NEEDED

[littleleeleanne]

Simple as the title really... my newborn is 10 days old (been home for 4 days) and my 16 month old son is really struggling.... any advice?
He is starting to be difficult at nap times and just seems to constantly whinging etc - I've had a c section so can't pick him up which is tough but I'm getting down to his level and cuddling him that way. We are not telling him off as he isn't being naughty in my eyes he just doesn't know how to deal with it.
Any advice on how people got through this stage??

Thanks xx

It's hard. We have the same age gap but it gets sooo much easier. I found lots of praise helps, make sure visitors make a fuss of him and try to spend some time with him alone while baby naps. I took over the bedtime story which helped - it became our time to reconnect.

Hang in there, I think they need to get over the shock!

We have the same age gap - agree with PP that getting visitors to make a big fuss of him will help. My husband also spent a lot of time with our eldest doing fun stuff. We felt quite strongly that she didn't ask for a baby sister (and was too little for us to prepare her too much) so to expect her to be happy about it was unreasonable!

Also in the very short term while you're recovering it's reasonable for him to be a bit put out that you're 'out of action' - normally you'd be picking him up etc and he's too little to understand why you can't do that (and may understandably blame his baby sibling?)

There was definitely a realisation after perhaps a few weeks that the baby wasn't going anywhere! But it's soooo lovely to have siblings close in age (mine are 10 and 11 now), it'll be worth it xx

Thank you both for posting. I really appreciate it.

I've told all visitors to basically ignore the baby and just focus on him. He definitely seems to be getting a little bit better, going to just keep doing what I'm doing and pray for the best!