Sibling problems

[cagoldi]

Well, the day I feared is upon me.
Atticus doesn't want a brother and he's constantly annoyed by him now that he's mobile.

He takes his toys, he won't share, it's generally making life miserable.

sing2phins IIRC, this kind of thing started once Ben was crawling and walking? How long did it last and what finally made it better?

Any tips from the BTDT moms?

Thanks!


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[wineallthetime]

This is us. It's super hard. They always want the toy the other one has. C will constantly yank anything L has out of her hands. He'll also hit her/kick her if she comes near something he's playing with. He wants anything she has/is doing. We have a sing set with one baby swing and one regular. He can use the regular one just fine but only wants the baby one because she likes it.

No advice really. I try to set C up on our dining room table, which is basically in our playroom, with legos or a toy so that they are separated a little bit. I also do a lot of, "Ok, you get that toy for 2 minutes and then it's his/her turn".

ETA: L is almost 15 months and walking just for reference. 

[joelies]

We hit this initially once Chase started crawling, and it was awful. It calmed down within a few weeks, once Colin got used to Chase being able to follow him. And to be honest, at this point they are BOTH constantly trying to take toys from each other. I just try to treat them both the same - discourage any snatching and encourage swapping toys after awhile.

I assume they'll stop fighting over dumb stuff in the next decade or two.

[sing2phins]

Oh, man. I'm sorry. Those days were the worst. I mean, remember this (I don't know why it's sideways - I uploaded it to imgur the right way)?



Anyway, for us, it lasted a more than a full year, from the time we brought him home until he after turned 1. We tried to give her as much one-on-one attention as we could, we tried to let her help with him as much as we could, we tried the old, "Oh, Benjamin, it's Maggie's turn now, I'm sorry, you'll have to wait," even if Ben didn't really need anything and was just babbling. We also instituted a zero tolerance policy for hitting, kicking, smacking, etc. Time out for her every time. We got a good 7 or 8 months where things were good and they were so sweet to each other - and then Ben became a hitter and a biter and now it's gone to shit again, so we're back to time outs for everybody!

[nam2013]

First of all I’m sorry you’re dealing with this. I have a few things you could try.

- Be extremely positive, try to create situattions where this can happen. For example ask A to hand something to X at the dinnertable, praise extremely high if he does. Try to vocalize what you see to X ‘look X, A just gave you that, isn’t that nice?’

- Try and show them how to play together, I know it's hard at this age and stage, but sit on the floor and role a ball.

- Be very short and stern when A does something that isn’t correct, don’t get angry (I know easier said than done) also try to look past the little things.

- When X does something to A, name that too. Even though X is to young, it shows A you don’t have a favourite and rules are rules.

- Try to create some special bog kid time time just for A, plus a special place where A has toys that X is not allowed to play with.

- If he is susceptible to calenders, make a chart were he gets a sticker for every positive interaction he has with X, with a daily small reward (an extra story at bedtime, a drum session with dad, a popsicle etc) and a big reward after a week (a trip to an ice cream parlout with mom, wathever floats his boat).

It’s probably going to take time, but positive reinforcement works 99 out of a 100 time, it’s just very hard work. Vent any time you need to, hugs.

[vino]

Ugh this is tough and a phase that I'm dreading. My plan is to obviously encourage then to play together but it's ok if he needs his own space but he'll have to go somewhere else to play, bedroom or downstairs play area.

I've even done it a couple times already and he goes for maybe 5 minutes of alone time then he's all of a sudden ok to share and have her in his space.

If he is playing with something that she wants she gets to have one also, ie a car or something, duplo piece.

Basically, I'm just going to wing it and hope for the best. 😐

[calimocho]

We went (are going through) this. Honestly, where possible, I buy things x2 so they each have one (2 soccer balls, 2 coloring books, 2 Spider-Man shovels). Obviously only for inexpensive things. It avoids a lot of fights.

We have a zero tolerance policy for aggressive behavior from both kids. We praise sharing, but if a boy is using a toy and isn't ready to share we tell the other boy he needs to wait his turn and find something else to play with for the time being.

[peachsmama]

Jun 22, 2017 10:02:46 GMT -6 calimocho said:

We went (are going through) this. Honestly, where possible, I buy things x2 so they each have one (2 soccer balls, 2 coloring books, 2 Spider-Man shovels). Obviously only for inexpensive things. It avoids a lot of fights.

We have a zero tolerance policy for aggressive behavior from both kids. We praise sharing, but if a boy is using a toy and isn't ready to share we tell the other boy he needs to wait his turn and find something else to play with for the time being.

Yup. And it works great until my nephew comes to play lol. Sometimes They play great and others I have to make them play with different things. Our main issue right now is J just started hitting and M loves to scare J by being a dinosaur. J over reacts and either SCREAMS or hits. 

Since it's mostly toys, could you let him divide his toys up? Some stay in his room and are his, others in the common area and are for both boys? Maybe put little baby toys in X's room so he sees that it's even for both? 

[joelies]

vino is right on the alone time - there was awhile where Colin would just need to go up to his room solo for 5 minutes when he got overly worked up about Chase following him or trying to play with him. He hasn't needed to for a couple weeks but it was a great option to give him space and time to calm down.

[csho]

Jun 22, 2017 9:05:13 GMT -6 nam2013 said:

First of all I’m sorry you’re dealing with this. I have a few things you could try.

- Be extremely positive, try to create situattions where this can happen. For example ask A to hand something to X at the dinnertable, praise extremely high if he does. Try to vocalize what you see to X ‘look X, A just gave you that, isn’t that nice?’

-----SNIP------

Obviously, V doesn't have a sibling but in the parenting class I took, all the other parents had more than one child and the instructor recommended what nam2013 said for 15 minutes at a time, twice a day.

[inthekitty]

Uhhhh....it definitely gets better, but hasn't ever really stopped for us. It's not a constant thing by any means, but there's still a lot of bickering and fighting over the toy the other has even though she didn't care about it before her sister had it. We use a lot of the strategies mentioned (buy 2 of everything cheap, massive praise for sharing, set a timer for time with an item, encourage some alone time and separation when it doesn't stop, putting the toy in time out if they continue to fight over it, etc). Maddie is old enough to explain to her things like Cass is still learning to control her emotions, we need to help teach Cass how to share, etc. I've snickered a few times when Maddie rolls her eyes at Cass and mocks her meltdowns over nothing. But in a way, laughing about it (not right in front of Cass) makes it easier for both of us to handle instead of being irritated.