Newborn and 2yo

[beanys]

Hi,

Really wanting some advice and guidance on how to manage the first few weeks of being at home with newborn and helping my DS(2) to cope with the new arrival. He is okay with her, looks at her from a distance etc but as soon as either myself or DH picks her up he has a full meltdown. To add to this tricky situation, I am 5 days pp from c-section, and DS has no concept that he can't jump on me or be a little gentle. This thrown in to the mix of sharing his mum is just making for a tricky situation at home! Any help or suggestions would be much appreciated!!!

Hi OP. congratulations on your new arrival. This was me 10 weeks ago! Came home with a newborn post C-section, my other son was 21 months. I hate to say it but I really tried hard to look like I was ignoring the baby when he was around and instead give him lots of attention, so he wouldn't see baby as a threat. Obviously I didn't ignore baby when crying. But I would put the baby down in bed a lot so I could devote time to son. Basically we just worked really hard to smother our eldest in attention. Then gradually eased off. We're 10 weeks down the line and now my son is fine with the baby (although he did try to pull him off the high chair the other day). They just need a bit of time to adjust.

Also I had to get over my c-section pretty quickly! It's ridiculous that you've just had abdominal surgery and you don't get a break but no other option for us mums!

Lots of cuddles and patience.

I had Ds2 when Ds1 was 16m so a bit easier. We had a book called "be gentle" which helped when Ds1 wanted to start exploring the baby