My baby isn’t safe around her cousin- help please

[Babyroadtripper]

Currently away with in laws and need some practical advice. We see my BIL and his wife and DC twice a year, so not very frequently at all.

I have a 11 month old who is very new to toddling and unstable.

She has an 11 year old cousin who is obsessed with her. He most definitely has some additional needs based on my experience as a teacher in a special school (10 years). The family just think he’s a bit of a character and overly sensitive- but he has definite social communication needs. Like I have seen some children gravitate towards the reception children during my time in mainstream, I see his fixation on my DD in the same way. He coos over her so sweetly, but gets overstimulated and excited. He doesn’t understand how fragile she is.

When we’ve seen them before but DD was younger so the most I had to fend off was some poking of her birthmark, and he didn’t like me telling him not to.

We have been in the holiday apartment for 30 minutes and so far he has been poking her in the throat when she was eating under the guise of tickling. Straight after the meal, he picked up from the floor when she was playing- tried to sit her on a dining chair and when his grandma tried to very gently ‘no no no’, plonked her on the floor. It all happened so quick. She toppled backwards and slammed her head on the floor. The sound made my blood run cold. He sloped off straight away, unbothered.

I grabbed her, checked her, fed her. lots of tears but she’s ok.

5 minutes later BIL’s wife came to check in a casual, ‘oh she’s okay’ way. I’m really not happy.

i’m not an anxious parent. At all. I usually get scoffed at for being TOO CHILL with DD, but I don’t trust him. I don’t trust the adults to keep her safe with him either. We’re going to a water park and I’m worried he’s going to do something stupid like let go of her in the water, if a good intentioned adult lets him be a ‘big cousin’ and swim with her.

Please help me here.

That was my first thought as well.

There's obviously an issue here with your nephew that his parents are wilfully refusing to acknowledge, so you need to watch him like a hawk in case he decides to retaliate against a baby.

Wow, you're very keen to vilify this kid aren't you? Wonder why that is? Or why you think bollocking him again (for what, looking sulky?) is going to improve matters.

I agree with this, I think there's a strong chance this child will attempt to punish the baby.

Unlike many people, whose memories of childhood have faded, I have traumatic flashbacks to my bullies beating the living daylights out of me and sexually assaulting me in retaliation after I reported them. I recall very vividly just how vicious a vengeful child can be.

I'm not sure how you managed to twist "he needs to understand that he got himself into trouble by mistreating your DD" into "bollocking him again". I think that your interpretation of what I said says a lot more about how you interact with children than about how I interact with them.

@VitoCorleoneOfMNMafia no I don't think so but you are strangely keen to make this into something (bullying) that there's no suggestion that it is and equate it to your own experiences.

Did you read the OP's posts? This boy dropped her DD on to a hard floor on her head and then walked away. He later threw a ball, hard, at the DD whilst OP was holding her. And other events as well. This boy is a risk to her child, whether you call it "bullying" or not.

Either he lacks awareness of the needs of others and self-regulation of his own behaviour, in which case he's a danger to the baby because he doesn't recognise that he can hurt her; or else he hurt the baby deliberately when he threw the ball, in which case he cannot be trusted not to hurt the baby again in retaliation. Either way, he cannot be trusted not to hurt the baby.

In the second situation, where the harmful behaviour is deliberate, there is hope for him to learn to do better. This is where him understanding that he was told off because of his behaviour and it's not the baby's fault comes in. I remain puzzled as to why you seem to think that getting him to understand that means "bollocking him again".

You were holding your baby all the time at 11 months old?

One if mine was walking then, the other crawling everywhere. No way they would have been happy to be in my arms constantly.

I have vivid memories if dc2 when he was 9~10 months old, not walking as such yet but happy to ride his ride along and doing races with dc1 around the living* room

FFS have you even read any of OPs posts? OP CAN'T leave the baby down, the nephew is grabbing at and picking the baby up. It's in the very first post.

@VitoCorleoneOfMNMafia but what makes you think that he wants to get back at the baby? He's been told to keep away from the baby, he is keeping away from the baby - and now you think he's out to get her? Because why?

The sulking indicates dissatisfaction at the situation and a failure to recognise that the fault is his. The Relationships board is full of women complaining about their DHs sulking after arguments sooner than admit to fault. If adults do this, then so will kids. If the telling off over the his treatment of the baby isn't his fault, then whose fault is it in his eyes?

I didn't say that the boy definitely wants to retaliate against the baby. I said "he might try to get revenge". Go read it again, I have just quoted what I actually said. When faced with a boy who is showing you by sulking that he does not take responsibility for his own actions, and has already hurt a baby, the safe course of action is to behave as though the boy will blame the baby. It's not about monstering the boy, it's about protecting the baby.

Let me put it another way: the boy hurt the baby at least twice. At least of those times was deliberate, by throwing a ball. The boy is now sulking, which is strong evidence that he either thinks he's done nothing wrong or knows that he has and doesn't care. Why are you so sure that he won't hurt the baby again? Why are you so determined to give him the benefit of doubt after everything he's done so far?

OP I’m so sorry you had this experience. It’s really difficult when nobody else is willing to acknowledge the problem.

I have the same in my family, although the child has recognised additional needs, people are so reluctant to acknowledge the impact they pretend there isn’t one. Even after my baby DS was hospitalised and seriously injured by their clumsiness I was told I was overreacting as it was “just an accident” and it was just an accident but the child doesn’t have the cognitive ability to recognise the serious harm they have caused and amend their behaviour to prevent a reoccurrence, so
IMO it was a case of preventing a reoccurrence not just writing it off.

You need to be eagle eyed over the holiday, risk falling out with your in-laws if they don’t support the measures YOU feel are necessary to keep your child safe and limit your time around this child in future if their parents can’t adequately supervise and enforce appropriate boundaries to keep everyone safe.