When your older child hits your new baby...

[Lyndee]

My 32-month old says she loves her baby brother. She'll hug and kiss him several times a day. And yet, sometimes, she'll just walk up to him and smack him. What the heck is going on?

What do you do when that happens?

[Mary]

Joe does that sometimes too. We just say, "We don't hit!" and make him look her in the face to apologize to her. That really seems to be very hard for him and he gets very upset. Then, I'll comfort Frances and I'll thank him for apologizing and then ignore him while I'm with Frances. We are trying to teach him if he hits he has to do something he doesn't like (apologize) and then he isn't going to get the attention that Frances is getting.

Mary

[Karri]

Lyndee- I am sorry that you guys are going through this. We did and STILL are. Its so frustrating. We've tried to tell him to be gentle and whatnot, and we've completely ignored him and cuddled and given attention to the injured one and nothing seems to work. :(

[Trish]

Another one who is going through this and we have now added biting to the list :( I'm so sorry that Lauryn is doing this and if I find anything that works, I'll definitely let you know. :hug99:

[Nichole]

Trish, you beat me to it. I was just coming to say that we're dealing with hitting and now biting, too. :( Right now, I'm trying automatic time outs for both; I'll let you know if it works.

[Bonnie]

We finally seem to have crossed over on this one, but from very early on, Caroline was big into the random walk by and whack! She is 19 months older than Courtney. Courtney is now almost 11 months and Caroline 2 1/2. I think Caroline really stopped doing it within the past month or so. Good advice I got somewhere on this board was to focus on the baby whenever the toddler hits or otherwise is aggressive towards the baby.... instead of focusing on how naughty the toddler's behavior is, focus on "poor baby" lots of kisses and hugs to baby. The toddler is likely trying to get attention, so when you focus on the baby, you just give more attention to the baby and the toddler sees that that is the reward for acting out. I think it really helped us.