Jealousy - Omaha, NE

we had/have this with our two little ones now.

What worked for us was when holding the baby letting him sit on our lap also. Let him gently poke and pat and play with her. After a week he wasn't jealous or interested in her at all. The only thing he went back to was needing a bottle when she got one. So against all advice we let him have a couple of ounces of water in it and he was happy. Now that she can move around and is mobile he will jump into a jealousy mode and we let him on us and play with him (even if she is crying) and after 5 mins of full attention he is good and will even go down to her and pat her. We are just showing him he is important even if she needs something.

Just keeping letting your kids know that you love them adn that they are still important to you. When my youngest niece was born her older sister was 3 and had always been called "little sister" when the new baby was called 'little sister' the 3 year old came unglued and wouldn't even look that the baby for 2 weeks. we kept trying to focus on the older kids first so they new they were still high priority and after a few weeks the jealousy melted away. tell you daughter that you need her help with the baby and let her be part of it as much as she can handing you diapers grabbing things for you and so on. the jealously between siblings will always come and go. you have time so find her some big sister books and read them with her.

M.,

Word of warning - lesson learned the hard way. I had a 6 year old and a 3 year old and a new baby last year. I had made a point of telling the boys prior to the baby's birth that we would spend special time together, blah, blah, blah. Well, long story short, they were really upset when the new baby came because they had interpreted my extra attention prior to the birth as a signal that they would not get nearly as much attention after the birth (magnifying the truth and upsetting themselves). All of my extra planning and focus only made matters worse. And my 6 year old was more jealous than the 3 year old! So I guess my advice is don't play it up too much. Just keep things as normal as possible so your children will see that 3 kids is the "new normal" and that everyone will still get plenty of love and attention. They'll figure it out. Good luck! How exciting for you!

I have 2 kids, boy who is 2 1/2 and a little girl who is amost 11 months. We tried our best to prepare our son for his new sister, but when it comes down to it they don't really understand what is going on. When our little girl was born our son would scream, hit, hyperventilate when we were holding her. it was heartbreaking because he was just
so sad. We kept him involved with the bottle feeding etc... and made sure that we spend alone time with him and did big brother stuff. And of course he got a big brother present from his little sister. It took him a good couple of months to not get upset when we held her, but now its 11 months later and he's starting to like her :).. No, he's great with her now unless she is trying to play with his cars/dumptruck : ) The whole jealousy issue was hard on all of us at first, but now we've moved onto sharing issues. Congrats on your 3rd little peanut

I haven't had to deal with this yet, but I saw this advice somewhere else and thought it sounded good. They said to get her a doll who will be her baby. When you're feeding, changing, etc the actual baby, she can do the same with her baby. Before your baby comes, teach her all the things that will need to be done with her baby, so she knows by the time your baby arrives.

Tell her the baby is her baby. And that she can play with him/her and can help taking care of it. That way you are doing her a favor by having her baby.

We have had very little issues with jealousy with this approach.- You can also use the "your baby" tactic with you want them to help you.

"Can you please play peek a boo with your baby?"
"Can you please throw your baby's diaper in the garbage?"
ect.

It's worked like a charm 4 times for us.

Have a wonderful day!
R.- mother to 5