Toddler not coping with new sibling

[Mummysarah12]

Hello mums
I welcomed my new baby just over a week ago & since then my son (23 months) has been a nightmare. In particular at meal times he just will not go in his booster seat & screams & screams for ages. I have tried loads of things like decorating the chair with him with stickers, rewarding him when he eventually goes in etc but mealtimes are taking soooooo long now & it is driving me insane. I am shattered looking after a newborn & really need these tantrums to stop. While my partner is on paternity leave, I have been spending individual time with him each day doing activities he enjoys like painting & going to the playground so I am giving him as much attention as I can.

Does anyone have any advice as to anything else I can try? Or how long it tends to take toddlers of his age to adjust to the change of a new sibling? He used to be so well behaved so this change in behaviour is a real shock & Also very upsetting.

TIA x

My daughter was born nearly 6 months ago and my son was 27mths old when she was born. We've been really lucky and he adapted really well. How much of this was luck and how much how we acted I don't know! We really 'bigged' him up, telling him he was a really big boy, good big brother etc and got him involved in looking after his sister. He gets the clean nappy and wipes for me at every nappy change, fetches her bottles, muslins, dummies etc and loves being praised for looking after her. We also got him his own toy doll and little pram so he could join in and care for his doll as I care for the baby. He loves his doll and pretends to feed/change it, pushes it in the pram and cuddles it at night and we've praised all of these behaviours lots.
Meal times can be a bit tricky keeping DS in his chair (he's not in a child seat anymore), but we have Alexa and he gets to choose a song if he sits/eats nicely. It means we have nursery rhymes playing through the meal but it seems to work for us.

Can you let him just sit on a normal seat? I would do only positive reinforcement at that age and let things like booster seat go, making barely any mention of it tbh. 23 months is still soooo little and they change so quickly at that age, I really wouldn’t stress about it. Congrats on your new baby!

I'm watching with interest OP, as I'm abiht to have second baby imminently. Hope you get some good advice here as it sounds a real stressful situation and I have a nagging feeling im going to be in your shoes very shortly.

Can you get him his own little chair & table to sit at?