My 2yo is not coping with her new little sister being around and not having my attention and she is so sad and miserable all the time it's breaking my heart. I'm doing the best I can to spend as much time with her as I can but newborns are needy and with are having breastfeeding issues which make her even more needy so DD1 doesn't always get to have my attention when she wants it and she is so sad. Does anyone have any tips on how to help her through this. I've tried including her in everything but she is not interested at all.
Can she have special time with daddy where they do something nice together? We gave dd a special baby she could look after too it was fed when I was feeding and she had special blankets for her too. Maybe something like that would help your dd?
The one thing that helped my DD the most was lots of cuddles. We have just gone through the same thing. Dd turned 2, 2 weeks after bub was born. We were getting lots of tanties. It's so hard, please don't beat yourself up, I know the guilt you are feeling. She will be ok. What I did was hug hug hug her any chance I got. As soon as baby was asleep I would cuddle her, tell her how much I loved her, that she was my special girl etc. Let everything else around the house go for a while. When I was BF bub I would have her right next to me if she wanted to be there. I asked her to get nappies, wipes for bub. She had her baby that she would bath while I bathed bub etc. it gets easier. Things are great now. It's also a learning curve for them to learn that sometimes someone else's needs comes before their own and that's ok. Also try and have special time the two of you every day, even if its just half hr. have a bath with her when your partner gets home or a shower. Take her to bed and read stories for half hr while he has bub. Let him do bathtime with bub and you do one on one with your other daughter.
That's tough. A good book to help kids understand the changes with having a new sibling is 'Za Za's Baby Brother' by Lucy Cousins. It has the older sibling a bit frustrated with all the attention the baby gets and how mum & dads are so busy now. It ends with Za Za getting special time with mum and dad once the baby was in bed.
I found my 2 yo DD settled down after about 12 weeks and it all became normal again.
Good luck!
Sticker books worked a great for us. I had a stash next to the breastfeeding couch and dd would cuddle up and we would do them together while I fed ds. I also tried to play with dd whenever I could (like duplo, trains, dress ups etc). It's a short but intense period. Good luck.
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2yo not coping with new baby
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