DS just smacked his baby sister in the face :(

[mummee09v]

omg i am fuming!

he has been a right pain in the arse today and about 15mins ago he smacked my DD in the face. so hard that her little cheek has got finger marks on it

he is nearly 4 and she is 10 months.

i am now also feeling guilty because i screamed in his face and dragged him upstairs to his room by his arm, really hard, and now he is up there sobbing his heart out.

its not helping that i am stuck in as its throwing it down with rain and dp has got the car. and DS has no nursery as its half term.

to top it off i have loads of housework to do and cant do it with them round my feet anyway.

-having a bad day emoticon-

Oh dear .

Go and talk to him, say sorry for losing your rag and explain why you were so cross. That it isn't OK to hit.

If you are frustrated with the weather I expect he is too.

I remember this well, only in my case ds (then 2.2) bounced dd's (then 11 months) head off a stone floor.

My inclination was to see him as a monster and be furious at him (and indeed I was). It took a while to calm down enough to realise that he was not a demon but a little boy doing some inappropriate. He would not have seen it at all as I did.

So... you were right to tell him off but would suggest that now you go and talk to him calmly and explain why you were so annoyed and why he needs to take extra care of babies. Then give him a big hug.

Try looking at it from his POV. He was top dog, now he has a cute little baby sister who is taking half his limelight, who may or may not (I don't know) be crawling and interfering in his games. He may also be missing the stimulation of nursery.

Gwan, give him a cuddle .

Is she OK?

Penelope Leach says that older children may well feel as pleased about a baby sibling joining the family to be loved by their mother as the mother would feel being told that her husband was bringing a lovely new wife into the family.

Shelve the housework (or anything that doesn't lead to starvation), give DS a cuddle, all read a story together, and don't beat yourself up.

Don't be too hard on your DS or yourself, it's hard for the older child when a little on comes along and your time is so pressed.

I've been there, although with ds1 it was biting ds2 rather than hitting. It's hard but it will get easier as they get older.

thanks girls

just been upstairs and checked on him and he has fallen asleep.....awwwww. i think i will just leave him for a bit as he perhaps needs it.

dd is fine too now, but she wasnt when he first did it, she screamed the house down, proper tears and everything

he has never really demonstrated jealousy with her, he has been really good as far as that goes. but sometimes he "plays" really exuberantly with her as if for an excuse to hurt her (obv me and dp stop this as soon as we see it) and seems to get carried away - he has never hit her but he has pushed her before and snatched toys from her etc.

another thing i can think of that might make him resent her is that he has a different dad to her - i am engaged to DD's dad but DS's dad doesnt bother with him much. and i sometimes wonder if that is affecting him

Maybe make a point of getting your fiance to have 1:1 boy time with your DS? Some activity they would both be all active and enthused about?

He might already do that but it would perhaps help a little to make him feel that being a big grown up non hitting boy has advantages?

He may well not resent her at all and I don't think you should worry about that just because of this one incident. I reckon this is just what siblings do from time to time tbh, even if they really love each other. The problem comes for the mothers - I find it very hard not to overreact if my nearly 4 year old smacks our 5 month old (not that she does it often). DD1 knows it is wrong to hit her sister, but she just loses control sometimes. Which is fair enough; she's only 3 and self control is hard to learn.

Just draw a line under it. Tomorrow is another day and all that.