Almost 3yr old pushing over 10 month old sibling

[Blue2020]

Anyone with a 2yr age gap?

My son is 2yrs 10months old. My baby is 10 months old.

Until about a month ago it’s been great. The worst bit was he would take toys off the baby, all toys. We built up to him offering a toy in replacement if it’s one he wanted.

However the baby has started crawling and wants to play with everything. My toddler is quite possessive of his toys. so if the baby picks up one of his toys or if she’s crawled to where he is and attempts to pick up eg a piece of train track. He immediately and quite roughly pushes her over. He pushes her until she’s on the floor. It also looks quite rough. She then bursts into tears. We say no, that’s naughty (or other words) and he smiles. Sometimes he will randomly just go to her and push her over but a lot of the time it’s if she’s near his toys.

I realise he’s enjoying our reaction and I’m worried about it spiralling. I’m at a loss on the right approach here. Has anyone been though this? Did they stop pushing the baby over?

So far we tell him that he shouldn’t push her. On a few occasions we have taken him to his bedroom to remove him from the situation. My husband has sat with him and talked it through to make sure he realises what he has done rather than us assuming he knows pushing her is bad.

I know later down the line she will be strong enough to push back etc and it will be a better level playing field but I wondered if there is a way to stop this behaviour?

He goes to nursery two days a week. At nursery it’s a room with other 2-3yr olds and there he just makes a sound of someone has a toy he wants. He doesn’t show any violence or pushes anyone but then again it’s a different environment.

Of what he enjoys if you responding to him when he's naughty then I'd a. Make sure he gets plenty of praise and attention when he's good b. Fuss over the baby when he hurts her. Keep his telling off short and focus on her. You need to stop the bit where he feels like any attention is good attention and if pushing works, fine.

What's you're seeing isn't violence. It's normal sibling behaviour. You say no, remove toddler from baby and take away whatever they have hold of / wanted. "Talking things through" with a two year old who is desperate for attention / establishing sibling hierarchy is not going to work.

Is it when she takes a toy that he's busy with, or just something that belongs to him that he's left out? Can you help him to pack away his things when he's done with them, and if it's that she's disrupting his play (eg breaking his train track that he's building?) stop her, before he gets annoyed at her. Then if he does push, all attention and comfort towards baby and ignore him so that he doesn't get anything attention from the behavior.

Can you give him a safe play to play where she isn’t coming over to grab his stuff? Or be more in it to keep her away? His reaction is in some ways reasonable.

You need to make it clear that physical harm is not ok, not towards his sister, not to anyone. Talking it through will have no effect whatsoever at his age.
“On a few occasions we have taken him to his bedroom to remove him from the situation “ Not on occasion, you need to remove him every time he pushes or hurts her, every time.
A sibling picking up your toy is annoying, but he needs to learn to tolerate it to a degree. That’s part of life - sharing, tolerating.

Never leather in same unattended together even for a moment. I'd get a play pen and put baby in whilst 2 years old plays. Then I'd put him in one area of room with his toys and baby comes out of pen for crawling time. If he pushes baby over I'd put him in his room and fuss over baby every single time. When he's playing nicely I'd fuss over him. I'd also tell baby no if she tries to grab the toy he is playing with. You could try getting two of a few toys so one each.

Help your toddler play with some ‘special’ toys that baby isn’t allowed in a safe space (eg puzzle at the kitchen table so baby can’t get to your special game).

Never leave them alone, move toddler away if it happens or watch like an hawk and prevent where possible and give no big reaction (any attention, even being told off, is what they are after). A simple ‘no, we are gentle’ or ‘we don’t push’ and pick him up / move him away every time is plenty. I avoided putting him in his room as I felt the drama and time
accompanying that was more attention gaining / less attention on sibling which is what he wanted. Sit between them on the floor while they each have their own play space and block him going across to her with no reaction.

I think you can assume he knows pushing over is wrong - or he would do it to loads of kids and wouldn’t just be doing it at home to the sibling for attention! It’s just more attention he’s getting if you sit and talk through how it’s wrong every single time. Simple ‘no we don’t do that’ and move away is simple and easy for toddler to understand.

Don’t worry, it’ll end. One day he just won’t do it again, and the phase will be over before you’ve even realised. (Or they’ll be wrestling each other instead, and you have made it into a brand new phase, where
pillows are handy for knocking each other over!).

That makes sense and logically I know it’s sibling behaviour to some extent, it’s just that she’s a baby and cannot yet stand her ground or communicate for herself at all. So I feel like I need to protect the baby from any harm, and to curb my toddlers behaviour. To promote good behaviour and gentleness. We give the toddler a lot of attention and praise when he’s good.

It is mostly if she’s trying to play with his toys eg his train track or magnetic tiles. He leaves them on the floor (we tidy up and encourage him to tidy up) but she can also crawl now. I think that’s when it started, now he realises she can reach and play with his toys I think he pushes her over as a way of saying ‘no it’s my toy go away’. She’s fascinated with them, mostly because she enjoys watching him play and I think really likes him. They are great together most of the time. Of course she has her own toys and does play with them, the toddler is also sometimes good at giving her some of her toys. He used to take all toys off her even her toys so that’s improved.

We do say no to the baby when she tries to pick up or destroy his toys, then gently move her away and sit in between as a worst case. I do understand babies like destroying and we stop that because the toddler is very creative. I suppose it’s realising that he’s now sharing a play space as well.

They do mostly share the duplo, I bought various sets and are happy for it to be communal. I bought two boards so she has her own to focus on and take apart, while the toddler has his own space to build. He’s quite good with the duplo. Oddly he will also pass her some of his magnetic tiles to play with sometimes. The train set is a definite no, which is fair and we want him to have his own things. It’s then making a space because they take up the whole floor. We don’t have a separate play room. There is his bedroom but a) we want to keep the bedroom minimal toys (he has a few).

I would look at it from his point of view. Baby sister wrecks his game and she is gently moved away; he stops her/defends his game and he gets put in time out.

Keep modeling the language to tell you when the baby is doing something he doesn't want. 'Uh oh. Mum please help' type of thing. React minimally to the pushing, try not to gasp or react 'fast' in the moment. Move baby, model the language and distract. Heavy praise when he does use language over physical moves.

Really, for the time being, keep his play space safe from being wrecked and supervise interactions when you have time to model and curate the relationship you want between them.

That’s a good idea, he does love colouring. I’m not sure about puzzles yet but we can try that. The kitchen table would be a good location and somewhere the baby cannot reach.

We are trying to foster happy playful times, not forced, but praising a bit more when he is playing with the baby nearby and if he hands her a toy. Or stepping in early and saying to the baby ‘no that’s X’s toy, he is building with that.. here is your toy’ which the baby likes partly so the baby eventually understands but also so the toddler can see we are setting boundaries for her as well. It’s not just him that has to adjust.

I think you are rightabout it being a phase. I just want to handle it ok so it doesn’t spiral due to us handling it badly if that makes sense?

The 10 month old needs to be kept away from her brother’s toys. He’s also too young to manage his emotions and it’s not fair that he’s put in time out for protecting his toys from being messed with/broken. Keep her distracted with something else whilst he plays. Or put her in a play pen and play with the older one.

If it's particularly the train track that is causing problems, I think setting it up in his room would be a good solution.

He should be allowed to play with his own toys, you may have another child but it is not all about the next child, he is 3 he cant work out his emotions yet let alone be punished for doing something that is normal to him, as in the playing with toys bit

Where are these toys? If they’re in the living room then surely they’re communal toys? A baby won’t understand that toys within her reach aren’t for her to play with. We have communal toys in the living room and then eldest own toys in her bedroom.

It sounds like he's doing well overall then. Id keep out the things that they share happily like duplo and keep his special things to his room. We have 4 children, the rule in our house is that if it's yours and you don't want to share (like the train track) then you keep it in your room. They are entitled to want to keep some of their favorite things to themselves, but the living room is a shared space and it's hard to have to restrict the baby so much in a shared room.

Makes absolute sense. Just need to minimise everything because it’s the reactions they like, good or bad and then hopefully the phase passes quicker (until they argue with each other, but if they can argue they can also resolve it!).

I just meant puzzles as an example, it could be anything. We had a ‘special’ area for toddler to play with whatever toys they want where baby can’t get to (ie kitchen table or space in living room with me sat in the middle of them) and I had a ‘special’ area for baby where toddler wasn’t allowed (ie the corner of a room on a playmat, nothing grand). Everything else was fair game for whoever wanted to play with it in their own, clear boundaries and they will self police!

You sound like you’re doing great.

Oh my daughter used to do this to other children when we were out with her and her brother if brother got more attention. I used to ignore her and give the poor child who had been pushed over a lot more attention. It gradually passes but it was very embarrassing. She's nearly 33 now and great friends with her brother.

I always used to “tell off” the baby for taking my toddler’s toys - clearly no understanding at all on the baby’s part, but to reinforce that this wasn’t a one way street.

He’s doing really well. I completely understand they are his toys. I just want to make sure I’m approaching it to help stop the pushing and help promote a positive attitude between them if I even can. I know some things will be out of my control overall. He has on a few occasions pushed her just for sitting on the floor with zero toys around but in general it’s toy related. We tidy up a lot, toys in many boxes, they have their own chest of toys.

Today was an improvement, he played with his train set, I helped him to build it whilst offering the baby alternative toys and keeping her in a different area of the room. She was so curious watching him, she just loves to watch him and gets excited. He offered her a train and a piece of track to hold - nothing from me, no prompts. I was making sure she didn’t climb onto the track. I also asked if he would like to keep the train set in his bedroom and he was adament that he wanted to keep it downstairs.

I’m not worried I just want to handle the pushing being careful not to just tell him off and not to just allow it to keep happening either. There seams to be similar suggestions to calmly intervene or say no to the pushing but keep it very brief/short and move on, so minimal reaction.

He’s the sweetest toddler, very polite and good at telling us what he wants. He is just communicating his wishes with actions, we just want to help stop the pushing behaviour if we can. Of course we will focus on the root cause but just that pushing is not a default good response.

Thankyou, we will try to minimise any reactions. It does feel like a phase like the throwing food phase has stopped, I was just seeking advice from anyone who has experienced it for what worked well for them.

I like the kitchen table idea for a dedicated space the baby cannot reach.

That is a really good idea. So far I just keep moving her, being a barrier, and removing the toys if she has picked one up and replacing them with her own. I will be more vocal to her that she cannot play with the them.

My husband is actually good at doing this so I just need to keep telling her no more out loud because one day she will understand, and our toddler does understand already.

It’s good to know that it passes, hopefully in a few months to a year it will be a distant memory. Thankyou for mentioning your experience.

Might be worth giving toddler more one to one time maybe to help reduce jealousy