2 1/2 Year Old Big Sis a Bit Too Enthusiastic & Acting Out- How to Help Her?

At her age, I'd expect to always be with her when she's interacting with baby brother. She still doesn't really understand how to be tender. I'd take her hand and softly touch brother repeating the phrase softly. Show her how to touch other things softly. When she starts to hug or kiss her brother be right there and remind her to be soft. If she's still too rough pull her back and repeat the word softly. This worked with my granddaughter when she was 3 and her brother was a small baby.

She's at the age that tantrums are common. she does feel jealous and even angry at times because she's no only THE baby. My granddaughter just turned 10 and tonight told me that she thought it was unfair to have a baby brother when she was little. Her brother just returned from spending a week with his dad. While he was gone she said she missed him. So tonight I asked for clarification of what she'd just said. She said she misses him when he's gone and sometimes she's still angry with him but mostly she's glad he's her little brother. This made my heart sing.

She's been very jealous of him for many years. I can see that she's maturing.

At 2 1/2 your daughter's brain and emotional development isn't such that she can understand these concepts. I suggest that you show her sympathy when she seems upset because of her brother being there. You may have to suggest that you understand how she feels about her brother because she still doesn't know how to talk about how she feels. You do the talking for her. When she's feeling OK, also talk about how it must feel to have a baby come in and take over her spot. Let her know that how she's feeling is OK.

I'd treat the tantrums in the same way we always treat tantrums. Ignore her and let her work her feelings out in this very physical way. I found that if I sat down on the floor a ways away from my granddaughter her tantrums ended more quickly and she would crawl over to me and let herself be held for awhile. I think I started the hugs by asking her, once she was calm, if she wanted a hug. We didn't usually talk about the tantrum or the reason for the tantrum. I just held her and comforted her, realizing that it's tough to be 3 and have a baby in the house.

I don't know how old baby brother is, but I have two that are almost exactly 2 years apart. The tantrums (hitting baby brother) lasted about 3 weeks when my second one was born. I tried different things, but it sort of stopped on it's own.

Now my 2 1/2 year old insists on squeezing baby brother's head, pulling the tuft of hair on top of his head, and giving his brother tight hugs! This is all done with excitement and love (in theory!).

We've made silly games like toe hugging and arm hugging and encouraging big dramatic silly loud toe hugs. It seems to work, but every few days there is another head squeeze or tuft pulling.

I think you need to just continue doing what you are doing. As much special attention as you can give her, give her special tasks to keep her busy, have toe hugging sessions with lots of rewards, etc.

She will grow out of it and as your son becomes more interesting, her behavior will change. My youngest is now 8 months and sitting up and a lot of that has ceased, but once he starts crawling and taking toys from big brother, I am sure it will all begin again!

Congrats mama! Good luck.

By the way, I stumbled across a great solution. We hired a German speaking babysitter to come 2 hours, twice a week to help us with my older son's German (we speak German at home) and he has LOVED having 2 hours of attention from someone that doesn't even look at the baby, nor even talk to him. It's been great. Maybe not a solution for you, but maybe an enrichment program at a preschool or a teenage friend you know to come and play with your older daughter and give her special time all to herself?

She's tantruming daily because she is almost 3. Yup, 3 is worse than 2 (I don't know why this is kept secret from us!) As for the over-exuberance toward her brother... I let them snuggle as long as everyone could breathe and nobody was crying. babies can take more than you think and my firstborn would actually crawl into the infant carrier on top of her sister without incident. She wants and needs to be involved, so give her some non-contact jobs so she can be connected. My oldest was responsible for singing to her baby when the baby cried. It was very sweet, sometimes she just sang the ABC song, sometimes she would make up songs - which were so amazing! Think of a few other jobs like this one so that she can exercise her big-sisterly duties without physical harm!

Be consistent.
Be firm.
Tantrums at home are going to get worse unless you ignore them, don't give in, and don't react. Tantrums outside the home are going to get worse unless you don't give in. NEVER EVER give in to a tantrum. All that does is teach them that if they whine long and hard enough, they'll get what they want.
Do not let her get away with bad behavior - time out works wonders but you need to be consistent. They are often hard to get started, but once she gets the hang of them, you won't have any issues.
I agree with Marda - show her how to be gentle. She has no clue! She's never had to be gentle before.
Good Luck!
LBC

She is probably too young to be able to moderate her affection or really understand what kind of harm she could do. Please don't get angry with her. Most kids hate their new siblings, so it's great that she is happy to be a big sis. You might try showing her how to be more gentle by practicing on a balloon. If it pops, she'll realize that hugging too hard can hurt. Give her specific things she can do to care for the baby, like giving him a bottle or rocking him gently.
The tantrums are also normal. Of she acts out, stay calm and tell her that she is a big girl and you will not respond to her until she acts like it. Then walk away and ignore her until she calms down. When she calms down and reaponds appropriately praise her for being such a big girl and tell her how proud you are of her.

I SO understand this dilemma. My daughter (2 and 3/4 when her little sis was born) reacted the same way. BTW I do not think most siblings hate their new baby sibling! I think most can't help but love 'em, but at the same time must "work out" the feelings of their whole world changing and their position in the family (BIG brother! BIG sister!) being something totally new and foreign and (due to all our hype) apparently extremely important...

So, for us, the adjustment (with the tantrums and wanting extra attention, and suddenly needing something everytime mama sat down to feed baby...) that lasted about 6-8 weeks. I think no amount of special attention or special tactics can cure this... it just has to run its course while everyone figures out the new family dynamic.

The LOVE, oh the love. I totally relate. I agree with Mary Beth, as long as the baby can breathe and is not protesting, try not to interfere with the shows of affection. I am constantly reminding "gentle..." but she seems to forget 5 min later! And my daughter loves to elicit any response from the baby (now 4 mo old). Even if that means yelling in her face to see her eyes pop open and then cry. I had to get pretty firm on that one and finally explain that she had enough chances, if it happened again, XYZ would happen (timeout etc). She seemed to get it (after testing once and finding out XYZ did indeed happen immediately).

As the baby gets older... you'll see they love ANY attention from big sis. So it is hard to say "oh don't lean so hard on baby, don't get in her face so much" when the baby is giving tons of positive feedback in the form of smiles, giggles, coos etc.

And then the baby starts grabbing hair and stuff and they realize the someday baby may be able to be just as physical with them as they are with her.... hmmmmm.... payback time.

Good luck, it should get better eventually :) Just watch them like a hawk in the meantime!

About the smothering hugs and all that: I would try getting a realistic "baby" doll for her, and teaching her to give her love to the doll and have her practice taking care of the doll. Tell her that her new brother is too fragile but she can hug the doll all that she wants.