Extreme sibling rivalry - how to cope?

[theUrbanDryad]

Am posting on behalf of a friend who has a 16mo and a 3mo. the older child is very jealous of her little brother, and has bitten him, tried to put the blankets over his head, won't listen to her mother, thrown tantrums, thrown her bottle at the wall...she also has eczema which i think may be stress related.

how does she cope with this behaviour though? i told her to ignore the negative and reward the positive, but how do you ignore your toddler putting blankets over your baby's head??

any advice would be welcome, she is really starting to stress out!

Because her oldest is only 16mths in my experience best thing is to try to move her away and put baby out of reach. So if mum is leaving the room put baby in travel cot or take him with her. Stern Nos helped a little bit with H but they are just too young to completely understand. Lots of 1-1 time with 16mth old, it should pass within a couple of months[feels like a lifetime I know] but it will pass. Her behaviour could just be the excema as I know H is ten times worse when her excema is playing up as they feel uncomfortable and generally pissed at the world

Nemo - it's very hard for her to have 1-1 time with her dd because she's on her own with them both! i think the eczema (or however you blardy spell it!) is a bit of a chicken/egg situation: does she have eczema cause she's stressed or is she stressed cause she has eczema? either way, it's so difficult for her! how old was your dd1 when the sibling rivalry thing passed?

Very tricky with such a young toddler. I'd agree - keep the baby safe and away from the 16 month old - use a playpen. Keep remembering that the 16 month old isn't being nasty or evil, they are simply reacting to having attention payed to the baby instead of them and getting the attention back the only way they know how. The arrival of a sibling is very confusing to such a young child.

urban can understand that but at 3mths baby should still be having a couple of naps or be ok to put in bouncer chair etc while cuddling up with eldest. I can empathise as I have all 3 of ours from 7am till 7pm most days. Think rivalry passed a couple of months ago but H wasnt too horrendous, however she is already used to sharing me because of Adam aswell.