"Are you feeding him again? When's my turn to cuddle him?"

[Mumoftwo1312]

Not a nightmare visitor, not a MIL... my 3yo!

I'm looking for some tips or just sympathy, if anyone has been through this!

I just came home from hospital with new ds, yesterday. Had a c-section and I'm not very mobile just yet, and still in pain which I admit is affecting my endurance. He spent his first day in NICU so I'm a bit wobbly from that too.

We thought we were so well prepared with preparing dd, age 3, emotionally, for the new baby. I read countless blogs and threads. Everything I read seemed to suggest that my dd might want me and want all my attention and be jealous of my attention, and we prepared accordingly that I would often "ignore" ds and make a fuss over dd. My dm bought my dd a doll with pretend nappies to change to get the idea of what to expect. We visited a friend with a new baby and dd was very respectful, only approaching to stroke the baby gently when the mum suggested she could.

Fast forward to yesterday, when dd visited in hospital. I tried to make sure I wasn't actually holding ds when she arrived and I was so ready to cuddle my daughter, greet her, tell her how I'd missed her and ask about her nursery Christmas concert which I'd had to miss.

To my amazement she ignored me completely, went straight to the baby, insisted on holding him for the duration of the visit (to the exclusion of my ever-patient PILs). Insisted on holding the bottle (we're mixed feeding, nicu approves).

Now I'm home, she needs to "help" with EVERYTHING otherwise she sulks and complains. If he's asleep in his basket, I offer to read a book or do an activity with her (give her my attention) but she's having none of it, she wants to go and stroke the sleeping baby, which wakes him up. She hates when any of us hold him or change him etc (even if another adult is giving her our full and active attention). I thought she'd be happy if we all ignore him (when he's asleep) and pretend he doesn't exist, just playing with her and making a fuss of her. No! She wants to play at being Mummy! We constantly let her hold him or stroke him but she's only 3 and although she tries to be gentle, she sometimes holds his head awkwardly and we have to intervene and she gets so offended.

I'm exhausted and I think I might be getting depressed. I feel like I have a caricatured difficult MIL for a 3yo daughter.

Those first few weeks are intense. Once your pain subsides and your hormones settle you are a bit better able to put boundries in place. My baby is 6 months now and the 3 year old still wants to love him like this but not quite as intensely. In those early days it was just lots of gentle redirecting to something else. Lots of encouraging parallel parenting with their doll. Or asking them to help with something else - 'I don't need you to help baby feed but please could you find me a muslin?', "Let's take turns, you unpop the babygrow and I'll change the nappy.'

Now if he's crying and I can't reach him straight away (in the shower etc) I can ask my 3yo to sing or play peekaboo and generally they can get him to calm a bit which is lovely. I spend lots of time telling her to be gentle as she will hurt him as she rolls around on top of him and he is laughing his head off. Its really lovely seeing their relationship grow.

@Mumoftwo1312

the three year old narrator/patronising phase is horrible at the best of times!

I feel like you resent her wanting to do so much for/with him & like she's taking him away from you.

I'm worried you're going to end up with PND make sure your DH is keeping an eye on that.

make the most of the evening when Mini Mum is in bed!!

'Best Big Suster' is fine, it doesn't mean she has to do anything more than love him & look out for him!

she 3, she loves him. Try not to resent her & see it for the sweetness it is.

just be a bit careful where you leave him, my friend had left her baby in his bouncer where he'd fallen asleep & her eldest (3) had put a blanket over him to keep him warm, but he'd put it completely over the baby, head included!!!

luckily it was a cell blanket & it had only been briefly, when she'd gone for a wee. It could have been fatal

That was largely my approach. There's a 3.5 year gap between each of my three DDs.

When DD2 was born DD1 was 3 and beyond an initial flurry of interest she pretty quickly realised that DD2 would not be the playmate she has been anticipating for a very long time (couldn't talk her out of that one while I was pregnant 🤣). She soon decided that newborns are really quite boring because all they do is feed, sleep, poo, piddle and puke. So she largely ignored her and did her own thing, which suited me just fine. I remember how shocked she was when DD2 water-cannoned us both as I began changing a nappy. 🤣🤣 After that her interest fell off a cliff.

The same happened with DD2 when DD3 was born over 3 years later.

Don't overthink it and don't be afraid to tell her a firm "no" if she starts trying to do stuff you don't want her to do or that isn't safe. Put in solid boundaries. I certainly did. I certainly did and it didn't cause jealousy or damage their bond at all. Beyond the usual sibling rivalry they were close as children and are now close as young adults who are in their twenties.

I’m years out the other side of this now but slightly opposite, I definitely expected my oldest dd to be involved with the baby/intensely interested and not jealous or worried. And so it proved. Before the baby was born she learned all about birth and giving birth and watched giving birth videos and decided she wanted to be a midwife. She was then hugely fascinated by the cord, placenta, cord stump, fontanelles and by breastfeeding. She did an occasional feed after we introduced an occasional bottle at about six weeks but she changed nappies, held the baby for naps, helped the baby walking around (for longer holds she used to use the sling and walk around the house shushing the baby) She was absolutely eager to show the baby all of her things, toys, games, books, she would read to the baby, sing to the baby. For a good several months she was all about the baby and would talk about baby’s habits and routines to anyone she met.

The habit of teaching the baby things and taking care of the baby never went away. The fascination with birth, and breastfeeding did. She no longer has any interest in midwifery but is an excellent, experienced babysitter who makes quite a lot of cash on the side. This DD and the “baby” were extremely close through childhood, sharing a room and often a bed by choice. And they are still very close now, always cuddling, and the “baby” who is now 10 will tell DD everything, way more stuff than I get to find out, about what’s going on at school or with friends. Their current plan is to share a house as adults….

So I was 4 when my baby sister was born and I can remember aspects of it and now have a more adult understanding of why I did certain things. I was also the "first grandchild" so had not had any experience of other children within the wider family either.

Firstly I think my mum was a bit put out that I returned from my grandparents and didn't want to hug my mum but immediately said "where's my baby?" I was told not to disturb her as she was sleeping upstairs but I think what I really needed was to be introduced to her by my mum and talk about how little she was, what colour hair she had, how lucky she was to have a big sister etc. Sounds like you have done much better than my mum managed already!

Then, I think I was struggling to negotiate the change in relationships in the family with a new sibling.
I knew I was the "big girl" so I was trying to ensure I still had a relationship with my mum by joining in with her in tasks she was very absorbed by (eg feeding and winding baby) plus trying to relate in a "big girl" way by commenting on the baby etc. I wanted to be part of the new family dynamic which included caring for a newborn and I was struggling a bit to fit in. This was additional to the fact that I really loved babies anyway.

So, I would go with the flow of her wanting to be involved ( with the kinds of boundaries you have already established) and try and talk lots about the baby with her even if it is saying the same things over and over "yes she is so tiny isn't she" and maybe developing special jobs that she can be in charge of. (Getting the wipes, fetching a clean nappy) so she feels part of the new family dynamic. Christmas could be helpful here. Could she sort out a couple of toys she is too big for now and "wrap them up" for the baby for Christmas (may need some adult help, although to be fair the baby won't care how good the present wrapping is) or colour a Christmas picture "for the baby". These "alongside the baby" tasks could help her in finding her purpose in it all. I remember really enjoying cutting all the baby Jesus bits out of Christmas cards, plus glittery bits and sticking them in in an exercise book for my little sister, even though I knew she would be too little to look at them right away.

If your DH is up for it or you have other adults to help, doing some special christmassy things with her that babies can't do may be good ( Christmas sticker book, putting decorations on tree, icing some gingerbread etc).

As you recover and breastfeeding is more established, could you try things like reading to her while you are feeding so she can see that you can have focus on both her and the baby together.

Underneath her "little adult" comments she may well be uncertain and wobbly about how this new addition to the family is going to affect her. If you can try and be patient with her and see her efforts with her brother as trying to work out how to fit in to things I think it will ease off as she learns the new patterns of relationship.
She sounds a sensitive and intelligent 3 year old !

Hope you managed to get some sleep and are feeling brighter about the situation today.

I bet Christmas will be a big distraction for her so maybe she’ll lose interest in him then!

Thank you all so much, this thread has been so helpful and nice. It's been a harder day today - both dh and dd have got a covid-like cold (dd has a high temp, dh has back pain, both have cold/flu symptoms, but we are testing negative) and ds is clusterfeeding like there's no tomorrow and filling a bazillion nappies a day! So... tempers are running high... I'm just so short-tempered with dd and she's being so whiny and demanding.

We did have a lovely moment this afternoon when she decided to play Doctors and she put her stethoscope on ds's chest and he sort of smiled.

Thank you so much to everyone who described a similar experience, its so reassuring to read these stories

Sorry to hear their unwell. Hope the feel better soon.

Ah the winey and demanding behaviour is so hard but it sounds like they are developing a little bond x

I could have written this OP - DD is absolutely obsessed with her new sister, to a fault. Shouting at her that it's time to wake up when she's asleep, demanding to hold her, pick her up etc.

Obviously we don't cave to these demands but that doesn't make it any less exhausting.

To all the PP saying it's a novelty..... when does the novelty wear off? because DD2 is 6.5 weeks and it's worse than ever! (Sorry OP!)

@Originalusername89 ah no, I was really hoping it would wear off (it is getting better) our 2nd is 4 weeks now x

Awww you have brought back the memory of almost 4 year old DD storming into our bedroom in the wee hours (DS had been crying for a while) and screeching Twinkle twinkle little star in his face until he stopped crying, and then patronising declaring "that's how you do it" and slamming the door behind her and going back to bed.

My obsession with my little sister stopped when she began to assert her own personality and was more physically able to take toys off me, pull my hair and get away with things as the little cute one! You may have a bit of a wait. Sorry!!