The Odd Case of Sibling Rivalry

The Odd Case of Sibling Rivalry

Our newborn son Mason has been dealing with sibling rivalry long before his birth date in December.  Before I found out I was pregnant I noticed that my toddler started to get very attached to me, which was odd since he liked being under his father much more.  Shortly after his behavior started to change I found out I was expecting and as the months went on I knew it would going to be rough on him.  We’ve been here before though.  Our toddler had the same problem with my second child.  He didn’t like him at all when we brought him home, even now our oldest son is closer to his sister than our toddler son, and he loves the baby.  Those middle boys are the root of our odd case of sibling rivalry.  Anyhow our toddler  hasn’t interacted with our newborn at all.  IF you ask him to hug him or give him a kiss he goes running in the opposite direction and when I’m holding the baby he tries to climb in my lap or get on my back, just about anything to take attention away from the baby.  I’ve been so worried about how he would be since the baby got here and it wasn’t as bad as I thought and then hubby snapped this shot…

I was so happy to see he was making progress and then yesterday while the baby was sleeping in his lounger I walked in the kitchen to put away some boxes and I heard him whimper and walk to to find my toddler holding him around the waist trying to take him out so he could climb in the lounger.  (Oh by the way if you are in the market for a sleeper this Playtime to Bedtime Sleeper from Bright Smiles is great.  Even our toddler slept in it once and it’s been doing great with the constant moving from different rooms).  Sorry about that plug but have you dealt with sibling jealousy?  What did you do when your toddler didn’t accept your newborn?  I would love to hear some other thoughts on this because right now it doesn’t look like we’ll be making progress soon.