dd1 hurts dd2...

DD1 is 27 months old and dd2 is 7.5months old. Ever since DD2 was born, DD1 has given her a little kick or hit...we always say to her be nice or gentle, shes only little. I make sure I spend plenty of time with DD1 so she doesnt feel jealous.

So more recently, like the past 2 weeks, DD1 has been doing terrible things, like laying on her, kicking her in the head, more recently has been running up and jumping on her head with her knees, or just jumping up and down on her with her knees. Its getting to the point where it is happening all the time during the day. We have tried talking to her, naughty corner, time in room, smaking (no judgements please) and taking her dollies away. Nothing seems to work. She seems to understand that she is hurting her sister, but continues to do so.

The other thing I have noticed with her is she is also starting to test her strength out on other kids. We were at the shopping centre change rooms and she started to push another girl. She also did this to a friends younger child.

I am concerned that she will really hurt her sister. I wont leave them at all alone, but sometimes its hard when I turn away...

Is this considered 'normal' behaviour at 2 and is it just plain old jealousy? I dont know what to do with her anymore, I feel so sad for DD2. Do they grow out of it? Gosh we are even thinking of ttc #3 but it scares me that shes going to break one of them....or me!

it is fairly normal unfortunatly. Or at least in my house it is. IMO I found once the baby got to an age where they were more molibe and fun in the other childs age they think they ca play rough but they just forget the baby is just so much smaller. I have days where my almost 4 yr old is still to rough with DD. (19 mnths) He just doesn't get it when I remmind him over and over she can'tplay games like him or his brothers,

I hope it settles down for you because it is darn right frustrating :hug:

Thanks Nic, I hope it does settle down soon or I hope Rebecca gets up soon and thumps her back!!! Rebecca is just rolling around at the moment so hopefully she will be up crawling soon enough and things might change. It just scares me that she might actually do damage. She so rough.

*sighs* sounds like my house too! Oskar kneels on Elijah, kicks him sometimes. I try to be really gentle when I'm telling him to be gentle, but I certainly have my days where I'm sick to death of saying it every 5 seconds and yes, I've done all you have too including smacking cos I get to the point of not knowing what else to do and it does stop him. I try to encourage him to lay next to him rather than on top of him and I've told him that Elijah will be big enough one day to get him back so he'd better watch out! I hope they grow out of it sooner rather than later cos by the sounds of it it's our sanity at risk. Speaking of OMG he's climbing on him like a damn toy right now!

I don't have a toddler yet, but...

my stepbrother's DS1 is violent towards his younger brothers (about 2 years difference between each of the three of them). He always has been. We noticed that it started off when he was a toddler. When he hit the baby he got attention, distraction, and his parents would stop paying attention to the baby and start paying attention to him. He also never seemed to have negative consequences for hitting, not even, generally, being told off for it. Only positive consequences. I once saw this child, at the age of about 5, intentionally step on a dog's tail (the dog bit him, he didn't do it again!).

He's now about 7, a trouble to his parents, violent at school, not a happy kid at all.

My conclusion is that if a child is violent towards others, whether they intend to be mean about it or not, you have to try to make sure that they don't get rewarded for their bad behaviour by getting extra attention from the adults. Because if so, it's too easy for them to learn that hitting younger siblings is good. I'm not very sure how one works in consequences for their behaviour with not giving them lots of attention as well.

Which is not at all suggesting that you're doing anything wrong, minimatron. I guess all toddlers will push their limits in this way. It'll be interesting to see how my niece (nearly 2 years) responds to my daughter (2 months) in a few months time, when the baby is more "competition".

Sounds exactly like what went on at our house when both kids were a little younger. We tried all the things you tried to no avail, and then we started operating on tend to the hurt one first- I would pick up DS if DD hurt him, and say to him- Did Tori hurt you, thats not very nice is it, lets go over here and have a cuddle/read a book etc, while totally ignoring DD. Once DS had calmed down and was settled I would go over to DD and say, it is not very nice when you hurt your brother etc etc, and then we would all go and do something together. After a little while of being totally ignored for the behaviour it began to subside. I also made sure that when she was playing nicely and being gentle I would make a huge deal out of it and give lots of praise, cuddles etc.

It did take a while, and I found it really hard to not want to yell and punish DD for being rough, but ultimatley she was getting the attention she wanted, by changing it to the postitive attention rather than the negative it seemed to have the desired outcomes.

Ali - I love your advice!! Sounds spot on!

Good luck Mel!

Thanks everyone. I really do hope its a stage they go through and am hoping that when Rebecca starts crawling....hopefully sooon.... that things will change.

I do like the way you do it Ali, I suppose I never really though about it from that view. I am telling Olivia off, putting her dollies away, dealing with her giving her attention...all the while not really attending as much to rebecca. I sometimes struggle with who I should be looking out for first! Its great to have BB and other peoples advise. So I will do that, and I will talk with dh and tell him thats what we are doing and see if it works. I hope it does:) I have had a few days of peace coz they have been sick and Olivia has just plonked herself on the couch....

My two are roughly the same age and gap as Ali's two :hello: and I had similar issues. These days Flynn kind of "accidentally" body slams Oliver, who in turn does a WWF wrestling dive on Flynn whenever he can. Most of the time they get over it, when they don't the other has to say sorry to the one they hurt. Unfortunately I think a bit of roughhousing is normal (and esp normal for boys from what I hear, sadly)

Yep, same in this house. I feel like I'm on DS's case all day sometimes! LOL. I do let them play a bit rough, but I do pull him up on the more malicious assaults! When he spitefully elbows her as he walks past or runs up behind her and smacks her across the head. He tackles her at every chance, and has taken to holding her hand and pulling her off her feet and into the wall. *sigh*

He's started to lie to me though, so I'm changing how i deal with him. When i just KNOW he's done something to her coz I hear her cry and ask him what happened he says he didn't do nuffin! LOL. He doesn't always get in trouble now, coz I want him to tell me what happened.. so now it's more him saying sorry and getting him to think about how he's treating his sister.

One great thing that has happened recently is DS has decided that DD is his friend! so they walk around the house hand in hand. They walk to the 'shops' and to 'Nana's house' haha. But now if he does something to her I say "is that how we treat our friends?" and he pulls himself up, says sorry and then gives her hugs telling her he loves her!

I do think it is a stage. There will always be sibling rivalry I think, but as they get older, they do play better together.