[Closed] toddler trouble - dadsnetworld advice please

Have grandparents / anuty / uncle / random passer by take the newborn out for the day and spend some time with the older one.

[i]seems to be an obvious reaction to the newcomer..[/i]

She was 2 before I acknowledged my sisters existence, apparently, I guess I though if I pretended she didn;t exist she might goi away.

You have to start organising time with your son - hge's gone from being the focus of your lives to a bit of an add on when you can keep the baby quiet for 10 minutes. He's bound to feel a bit miffed.

his behaviour though is markedly changed, with grizzling, whingeing, tears at the drop of a hat, lack of interest, blatant ignoring, disobedience and tantrums..

If I substitute [i]her[/i] for [i]his[/i] it could be a desription of our 2 year old daughter.

My lad is 2 years older than his sister. When she appeared on the scene me and Oliver used to do grown up things on our own. This mostly involved wrestling or going to Tesco and letting him hold the shopping list and a lemon ❗ , but he loved the attention.

Well put it in simple terms you or your partner hold, carry and lift the younger one all the time in the eyes of your toddler. Even if you see the act of lifting or moving as just that - he'll see it as holding, hugging and affection.

one of my twins went through this at a similar age, actually just after they moved from a toddler environment to preschool. one twin mega confident, gets involved in everything and everyone. One was getting upset by big kids, noise etc. We were worried for a while but it was just a phase for us, we did make sure that we tried to encourage the right behavious and the routine was stable, but not sure if that had an imact to be honest, I think she just got over it

OK, I think a few on here will have been through this, I know I have 😉

What worked for us, was to make sure you set out one to one times for you and your oldest to get the attention he needed and plan an activity that he wants to do with you, make sure they know when this will be and dont break it for any reason 😉

My youngest has special needs and takes up a huge amount of our time, which effects everyone in out family.

I make sure I find time every day to give my oldest 100% of my attention without any distractions every day, we also book things well in advance for weekends.

Not easy, but it does mean I get trips to play with Owls and she can pratice her Karate on me 😯

My eldest still somehow manages to monopolise our attention even with the youngest here.

Nothing to add to your situation though except endorse the above advice.

Wow, you are describing my life! We have a screamer, but he is now nearly three. From being not many months old we just spent most of our waking time jigging him up and down. It eased off by the time he was about a year. we never quite worked out if it was a coincidence or not but his behaviour improved after he fell down the stairs one day. (It was a genuine fall, as tempting as it felt sometimes) He is still a screamer now but I would say more of your typical 'terrible two's' tantrum type.

He has two older sisters, the younger one would be about the same age difference as your two. She used to play up a lot, especially at night and I'm sure she was competing for our attention, and fair enough, she was right to! It is infuriating when one kid stops you giving the attention to other kids that they deserve.

I'm not claiming to know how to fix it, we never really managed it but the easiest times for us were when we were able to divide them up. Kids respond really well to one -one attention so make a real effort to spend individual, quality time with each of them. Time when you are doing stuff just for them, story, jigsaw, walk, drive in the car, even watching TV together. Even short amounts of 'protected' one to one time should make a difference.

That is all I can offer, if I really knew how to fix it I would be very rich.

edit: ski beat me to it!

they will get used to it but it may take some time.
ther eis little you can do as no matter how much you try the new baby will take some of seniors time, with you, away.

just try your best to help senior adjust and accept it may take time.
I got this when they were0 older say 2 and 4. Once the younger could freely move and take his toys then it all kicked off.
best of mates now at 5 and 6 with only 3 or 4 fights a day 😉

hang on in there it will get better but it will take some time.

My gran was caught aged 3 about to stove her brothers head in with a spade and when told off walked off saying
"when he bigger then I get him"
it is something he needs to learn to deal with and you have to try your best to support- perhaps try and dedicate some alone time with him where possible?
good luck and hang on in there

Fix the colic issue.

Yunki, I feel your pain, this mirrors our pair who are 2.5 years apart, the older one in the end just had to HTFU for a bit. But now she gets one-to-one days with me or Mrs toys which we fantasize makes up for it.

I think people above have hit the hail on the ned - your 2/3 yo is adjusting to not being the centre of attention.

As mentioned above, you need to work on giving him some one-on-one time, or involving him in stuff you do with the baby so that you're doing things as a family rather than with one or the other.

Kids obviously need specific attention, but also need to learn that they are part of a family and not the centre of attention.

If it's any consolation, our eldest took some time to get used to his brother arriving. My wife and I eventually realised we were not giving him proper attention so tried to change that (difficult with a baby that can't do anything for itself).

Now that the baby's crawling and being more 'interactive' our eldest enjoys playing with him, can do stuff with him etc and so doesn't feel like he's competing for attention as much.

"Fix the colic issue. "

This and the rest of the above.

Also are you sure its just colic and not reflux too?

noisy boisterous kids

My Advice, divide and conquer. Leave the little one with the missus and take the older one out on his own every now and again. So that he gets somes time totally devoted to him. Wether it's an hour at the park, a day trip to the local steam train type place or a weekend at grannies.

The little one will eventually get easier - but by that time he'll be old enough to fight with his brother and you're into a whole new ball game.

oh the joy of parenthood.........

Fix the colic issue.

Some mileage in this. It's very tempting with a screaming baby to put it down to "one of those things", but you might be able to do something about "one of those things". With a happier baby you may all find you have more (enjoyable) time to spend together. Crikey, who doesn't resent a screaming child, eh?

we are about 10 weeks ahead of you and things are sorting themselves out, baby is starting to settle a bit better meaning we aren't as tired/stressed/snappy, 2 year old took a while to adjust but is now in great form, loves the baby and even the girls at his nursery have commented on him being back to his old self.

it's a big change for them, don't panic and make sure you and his mum both try and get a bit of one on one time with him every day (not always easy or even possible in our case)

th epoint about once the baby gets to the stage of interacting is a big one, before that a toddler just finds them a boring inconvenience

thanks for all your contributions.. all taken on board 🙂

fixing the colic is not working out..

oldest son had colic too and cleared up completely with colief..

we have tried every remedy, potion and snake oil available on son two.. and although colief reduces the symptoms it's far from perfect..

Just get rid of the noisy one. Easy.
NEXT!

Take the colic'y one to a Chiropractor... seriously... One visit fixed both of our screaming horrors. With less jiggling required you can get back to playing with the older one.

Hmm yes, our oldest is a daddy's girl, so with mum doing the feeding of the other I think that automatically distributes attention to each child from each of us.

Our boy was really colicky/refluxy when we brought him home after our 4 month stint in NICU.

Tilting his cot up made a huge difference, combined with baby gaviscon. We also weaned quite early on our consultants advice and it's mostly cleared up. Three months on and Got our first full nights sleep last week too and a couple since...

He is young, he will adapt. It is a massive change for a small child to adapt to so give him time and love.

If it's any consolation, all the above shows that this is entirely normal!

Quality playtime, attention, one-to-ones from both parents.

Good luck

Maybe get him involved in caring for the baby? This worked well for us.

"Tilting his cot up made a huge difference, combined with baby gaviscon. We also weaned quite early on our consultants advice and it's mostly cleared up. Three months on and Got our first full nights sleep last week too and a couple since..."

Exactly this. Go and see your GP !

We did all of the above for Jnr FD. Weaned at 4 months.

thanks for all your contributions.. all taken on board

fixing the colic is not working out..

oldest son had colic too and cleared up completely with colief..

we have tried every remedy, potion and snake oil available on son two.. and although colief reduces the symptoms it's far from perfect..

Are you sure its colic? our oldest (now 5) had what we thought was colic, turned out to be a milk alergy, with which we are still battling with.
When she started on solid food we found out she is also alergic to wheat and gluten.
Off to the hospital again this afternoon...

Colic isn't a disease, it's a symptom ie lots of crying. So yes, it is. What's causing it is as yet unknown in this case though.

Tilting his cot up made a huge difference, combined with baby gaviscon.

^This is worth trying - helped a lot but did not completely fix reflux in our twins.

Lots of unknown/confusion about reflux/colic/milk allergy IIRC

Try early weaning on the youngest, it might help.
Most babies in the past were weaned at 12 weeks, it is only recently advice was put up to 4 mths, then again to 6 mths.

Haven't read all the responses but all seem sensible.

Fix the colic issue.

As already rightly said it's no doubt an attention thing, which the additional demands the colic brings won't help. Pay him as much attention as you possibly can, try to each spend some time alone with him. Perhaps take him swimming or for a bike ride on a sat/sun morning so he knows he has some mummy/daddy time of his own.

When our second came along the oldest was only 13 months so I think he adapted much better, but he did (and still does) have moments where he's vying for attention. Fortunately the youngest is now a little more robust so they end up wrestling.

Some friends with a bigger gap between their kids bought the older one a small present when they brought the baby home and said it was from the baby. That went down well, doesn't have to be much, it just makes them feel a bit loved and helps them accept the new baby.

Have you thought of cranial osteopathy, both of mine had it and was helpful. Birth is a natural trauma and this method can be really soothing. Used a guy in Exeter if your interested.

Birth is a natural trauma

Mrs yunki had an emergency tooth extraction the day before her due date - she suffers panic attacks and is phobic of the dentist and being so heavily pregnant she couldn't take any sedation.. so the procedure was very traumatic indeed..

I wonder if perhaps this massive explosion of stress chemicals and hormones in her bloodstream so late in the pregnancy might be a contributing factor to the baby's stress levels..

such is life.. I may contact you about that osteopath at some point

FWIW oldest has been at grandma's for the afternoon and isn't coming home til tomorrow (his idea of heaven) and baby has been very pleasant company..

thanks for all the advice and support..