My son still dislikes the ‘baby’

[gingerbears]

DS1 is 2 and a half years old, and DS2 is 9 months old. Ever since we bought him home, he’s just hated him being here. He will try and hit, won’t share any of his toys, cries if DS2 touches him in any way. I don’t know what to do? I thought it would get better as the months went by, but no improvement whatsoever!

It's a tricky age, they still can't verbalise or rationalise their emotions but they're become more aware of stuff- ie I'm not getting all of the attention now.

What have you tried so far?

I would work on reassuring him because some kids feel sibling rivalry very strongly.

Younger siblings becoming mobile and touching the older sibling’s stuff is often a flashpoint. If it’s the same in your house, encourage ds1 to play on a table so ds2 can’t reach. It’s a temporary solution until ds2 can climb onto a chair but might bring temporary relief.

The absolute worst period for us was when baby became mobile and would ruin whatever my older one was playing with. This led to about nine months of him hating the baby, but we're coming through it now (mostly because the baby is understanding more). Don't expect him to share. If he's playing and the baby comes over to grab it stop the baby and say "brother is playing with that. You can have a turn next. Here's a ball". The other thing that really helped us was getting our older child to say "mummy help" when he felt like hitting or was worried about the baby being too close. This massively reduced the hitting as he knew we'd step in.