Will this just go away by itself or should we be doing something about it?

[BroccoliSpears]

I've posted about this before.

Dd still won't let her father do anything for her. Even the smallest thing like getting her a drink or picking up her comfort blanket, she flips in to tantrum meltdown if he does it. As for bath time and bedtime stories, no chance. I am getting very tired! Dp is a very hands on dad, and until recently always did her breakfast, her bath time, often put her to bed etc.

She has a 3 month old baby brother. I know WHY this is happening.

At the moment I think we just take the path of least resistance and I do pretty much everything for her. We don't make an issue of it.

My instinct was not to force it - she is obviously feeling insecure about baby bro and wants to feel reassured that I've still got time for her. Recently though I feel as though she is more in charge than we are. Dp and I would both like him to put her to bed once in a while but she won't let him.

She drops her spoon at supper time, I am feeding ds, dp gets up to get her another spoon and there is screaming, wailing and gnashing of teeth because she wants me to get her spoon. In this instance dp then passed me the spoon to pass to her .

I'm really not sure what I think. Perhaps I feel that our 'gently gently' parenting is not doing her the greatest service in this instance?

She took the arrival of baby bro very badly and is only just now feeling okay about him.

I love her and very much want to assure her that I'm still her mummy and have time for her, but I also don't want the entire family to be walking on eggshells around the whims of a 2 year old. Dp is finding it hard to be rejected so completely for such a long time.

I think you hit the nail on the head re 'walking on eggshells'

There is being sensitive to her needs (giving extra cuddles, 1:1 time, you doing the bath if that's what she wants etc) but having a meltdown over a spoon? Nah!

I know exactly how hard this - my DS was 2.6 when DD arrived, and he didn't take kindly to her at all. With him, he learnt very quickly that doing mean things to her got our undivided (but very cross) attention.

We were advised to give him time that was absolutely his, especially from me. It worked until I had to b/f, and we would be instantly back to the same behaviour.

What changed for us was a family holiday with the cousins, who are little girls who just adored DD, and somehow that gave DS a sense of ownership of his sister, resulting in a very definate shift in behaviour.

I'm sure you have tried everything, but how is she with your DP if you are physically not there? How hands on is he with the baby, to give you just that extra bit of time with her?

dd goes through phases of this with both of us, we find it best to give in where convenient and refuse to bend to her whims if it's not handy, ie if i'm dealing with ds or cooking dinner and she wants me to bring her to the toilet but dp is there then tough... dp does it and she can fuss and scream but he still does it.

we try and explain as much as possible that mommy and daddy both love her but she has to allow whoever is there to help her if she needs help as sometimes mommy/daddy is busy.

Sory, Broccoli, just re-read my message back and it sounds a bit critical! wasn't meant to be

How old is she? DD1 was 2.8 when dd2 was born and she went very peculiar

I think you're right about the control thing. Take some of it back (in the way Pink Tulips describes). She'll get through it unscathed, I'm sure

It's knowing where to draw the line. I think we're going to have to be firm about the little things (which are big things to her, I'm sure).

When I'm physically not there she's better. In the morning, she refuses to go for a wee with dp (and we pander to this rather than wake the baby with her screaming), but once dp has managed to get her downstairs and told her that mummy's sleeping, she's okay and has her breakfast with him (I think a liberal application of Teletubbies helps sweeten the deal).

I don't think we can force her to accept dp's help, but I think we're going to have to start saying "okay, if you don't want daddy to help that's fine, but mummy still isn't going to come right now", so it's daddy or nothing, her choice, no drama.

No, didn't sound critical. You're right. Pandering to the silly little things is doing no one any favours. It always gets worse towards the end of the day when she's tired, of course. And then we're all tired and it somehow always seems the more pleasant option to just do what she wants.