Did You Have Trouble With Your Kids When They Got A New Sibling?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I was watching Bewitched and they had an episode where Tabitha is jealous of her baby brother with predictable hilarious results.

Since I have no kids, I thought I’d ask that of you all who do

When you brough home the new baby did you have the older kids have a hostile reaction to him/her?

If you have more than one kid did they all get jealous or was it just one of them?

Does age matter. Like when I was born there was a ten year difference between my brother and myself and a twelve year difference between my sister and myself, so I’d think the jealousy factor would be less?

2

My oldest son is about three years and three months older than the second, and I don’t remember any nontable jealousy issues.
Now, by the time the youngest got old enough to play with his brother’s lego creations - watch out!

3

My daughter was two and a half when her brother was born. She and I had never been apart until I went to the hospital. I thought she’d be missing me terribly. When we got home, and I was still in the car with the baby, she raced out of the house, climbed over me to kiss her brother and shout “My Baby!” She totally ignored me! She never seemed jealous,and they got along great until they became teens. They are friends again now in their twenties.

4

My daughter was also two and half when the twins were born. The first thing she did was declare one of them to be hers – leaving the other one get eaten by wolves, I suppose.

5

My oldest was 5 when her first sister was born. She was over the moon about getting a baby sister, and there was never any jealousy. She was three days short of nine when her second sister was born, and ahagin was just excited, not jealous. The middle daughter was 3 (I think largely taking her cue from her big sister) was also excited and happy, not jealous. There have been some occasional scuffles for attention between the two youngest, but never any kind of real jealousy. The two little ones are best buddies.

6

Son #1 was three and a half when #2 was born, and he was not the least bit thrilled. The first time he saw his newborn brother, he poked him in the forehead, shrugged, and walked away. He pretty much ignored him after that.

A few months later, we told #1 that we were going to have another baby. His face just lit up! And he went and grabbed the diaper bag, packed up #2’s bottle, blanket, and favorite stuffed animal, and set the bag by the front door. Apparently, he assumed we were trading in that baby for a new one, and he was quite excited about that!

Now, they’re 9, 5, and 4, and they get along more or less, with just the usual squabbles to be expected among 3 little boys.

7

No notable jealousy among any of them.
My son was nearly six when his first sister came along. When we called home to tell him he had a sister he listened and then said, “Can I go watch the Chipmunks?” It was Saturday morning. My mom brought him to the hospital shortly after that, and as they were leaving he told her, “I didn’t really want that baby, but I guess she’s okay.”
That baby was just barely short of two when the next one arrived. She was so busy mothering the baby she didn’t have time to be jealous.
There have been the usual ‘s/he’s your favorite’ things going on over the years, but they all get along, better than I hoped they would.

8

My son was 12 when my daughter was born, and her birth was dramatic and life tenuous at first, so he was more concerned for her than anything. He’s been great with her ever since, although of course sometimes exasperated. I don’t think jealous though, no.

I’d chalk it up to the age difference, but my mother was 11 years old when her baby brother was born, and she HATED him. Just hated him. She used to sit over his crib when babysitting and sing to him, “Mommy and Daddy left and they’re…never…coming…back! Because you’re such…a…bad…baby!” :eek:

They’re friendly now, but it took a few decades.

9

36 and 34 years later, my mother is still amazed that she never had that problem with us. Both myself and Middlebro were extremely happy when the next one came along; in Littlebro’s case I did get jealous later… but of the maid who would not let me hold him. As I once put it “I didn’t break Middlebro, did I? And I’m older and bigger now!” I just found her attitude terribly insulting. Littlebro is the apple of Mom’s eyes, but that’s as bad for him as for us elders… and he did have a better relationship with Dad through their teens than Middlebro did, but this was, one, in their teens, and two, as linked to Middlebro’s inability to be anywhere on time as to Littlebro’s ability to ask for something small shortly after Dad had had a match with Middlebro over something big - since Dad was tired and the request was small, he’d concede it.

The Nephew, same. His pride at becoming an Older Brother was enormous, he showed off the new kid like he’d built her with his own hands. Even though, as he confided in me shortly before she was born “at first they don’t do much, you know, just eat and sleep and poo.”

10

We’re just going through this right now. Our daughter just turned 2 days before our son was born two weeks ago.

We have friends in a similar situation, whose children are 20 months apart. They had quite a bit of trouble with the older sister being jealous of the new sister.

Being aware that there would likely be issue, we planned ahead and talked to our friends as well as other people about how to handle it. For example, our friend said that when the baby cried, she would ask the son if it were a good idea to pick her up. That seemed to help him realize why his mother was always holding the baby.

From well before our son was born, we bought several books about young children getting new younger brothers or sisters. We also showed her books about babies, and talked about getting a new baby at lot.

We practiced petting dogs and flowers very gently so she would be used to being soft with certain things.

Obviously, at 2 years, her comprehension isn’t like an older child, but I think talking about it helped.

She was in the delivery room with us with her brother was born. Again, her level of understanding is limited, but it was much better than just bringing a baby back from the hospital.

During the time my wife and the baby were in the hospital, we visited every day we could, and talked a lot about the baby.

She quickly started to say “my younger brother” (in Chinese) and “my baby” or “My Shawn” in English and Japanese.

She really likes him at this stage and likes to hug him. We have to watch that her enthusiasm in keep in check.

I give her lots of attention so that she doesn’t miss out from what she is missing from mommy. She is a little more fussy on some days, and sometimes has wanted me to pick her up too when I’m holding the baby. We were prepared to give her a lot of slack, but she hasn’t needed it that much.

All in all, I think it’s gone really well.

11

My daughter was about two and a half when my son was born. No jealousy at all. Actually, like TokyoPlayer, we also had to keep her enthusiasm under control. She would love to give him his su-su (pacifier) and hold him, rock his cradle, etc.

12

None that neither my SO or I have been able to detect.

However, were were quite aware of the (theoretical?) risk and were rather scrupulous in including the older siblings in most situations. And we never concentrated all our focus on the new baby

13

Not much with my kids. Oldest daughter was almost 4 when I had baby number two, so anything of older daughter’s that I needed to recycle for the baby was not anything she was still attached to. Then, middle daughter was 8 when I had our third and last. I will say there is some jealousy now, because my older daughters are 23 and 19, and my youngest is 10. We are much more comfortable financially than we were when the first two were growing up, so yeah, the younger reaps some of those benefits. But even now, it’s minimal.

Now, for me and my siblings, I understand there was some resentment when I came along. I was the last of five, all girls. One of my older sisters lives with me, and she said the general consensus among the older girls was “We don’t need another kid!” It certainly doesn’t help that I was whiny and emotionally needy when I was little!

14

Reading this thread with interest since we just found out I’m pregnant again. Due date is one week after Gothlette’s 3rd birthday. Should be an interesting summer! I am relieved to see how many people are saying it wasn’t a problem.

My older brother is 5 1/2 years older then me and I’m told he handled my addition to the house just fine. (Other then announcing he would have preferred a brother.) He would “babysit” me while my mom showered or ran to get my bottle. And there’s plenty of pictures of him holding me and beaming. We weren’t particularly close once he got to middle/high school, but we’re friends now as adults and he and my husband get along great.

15

I was a hair under two when my brother was born. Friends of the family came over to visit and, apparently to make me feel special and less jealous, brought me a gift: a large green plastic bat and ball. I promptly went over and whapped my new brother on the head with the bat.

We get along fine now.

16

I think it varies significantly from kid to kid and the family dynamics. Our son was 3.5 when our second was born. He’s extremely intense and very, very attached to me. So when our daughter was born, not only was he devastated to wake in the morning and find both me and my husband gone (his grandmother was there and we’d told him what to expect, but nothing can prepare you for the reality), he was terrified I was never coming home.

Then when I did get home, my mom was really tense because of the chaos in the house (I advised my sister not to have her stay when they start having kids - it’s not worth it) and was already drinking by the time we got the new baby home, my son was pitching a fit because my daughter would spend hours breastfeeding and my husband didn’t want him to interrupt us (even though it didn’t really matter). Things went sharply downhill until my mom left, when things evened out a little. Then when it became clear my daughter wasn’t leaving, my son went through an awful patch around March when he was acting out at home and at school. Then when she became mobile and got into all his stuff, he went through another tough spot, which has only recently come to a close.

The good thing is that he never took his anger out on his sister. If he doesn’t want to be around her, he just avoids her, but he enjoys making her laugh and doesn’t mind her playing in the same room as long as she isn’t in his stuff. The bad thing is that he had a lot of anger and took it all out on us. My husband and he have always butted heads, but it was especially bad when she first came home. That really made things tense for a while, but both of them backed off a bit and things have been easier.

My son still isn’t a fan of her getting into his stuff, but at least he isn’t as angry as he was. We make a huge effort to spend some extra time with him alone, plus involve him in most things we do with her. Eventually she’ll also need some alone time with each of us, and I’m sure that’ll be another adjustment.

17

My neice was 9 when my (remarried) sister got pregnant again.

Neice immediately became the biggest Drama Queen Whiner on the face of the Earth, going on an on endlessly about how her mother was “ruining her (the daughter’s) life”. Carried on for well over a year about how horrible it was and how it had ruined her life and she wished she never had a younger brother. I didn’t have to live with it and it annoyed the fuck out of me as the uncle.

Thirteen years on and she still kinda looks on him with disdain. We gave her shit about it a couple of years back and she honestly said “well it DID ruin my life!” :rolleyes:

18

I’m neither married nor a parent, but a good friend of mine had a daughter when his & his wife’s son was three. Two years later, the son and daughter still utterly adore each other; the son was actually a bit of a handful before, and somehow he’s matured a bit and takes the lead on looking out for her.

19

My brother was 10 when I was born. Apparently I cried the first time he held me and it upset him, so Dad went and had a man to man with him.

Things went pleasantly after that, especially since parental guilt kicked in and they bought him a VCR.

20

My oldest was five when the fourth was born. He decided he wanted to go back to wearing diapers and otherwise to be treated like a baby. We talked him out of it.