I have two girls 4.5 and almost 1. Now that the little one can crawl and is into everything, the family bliss we enjoyed has quickly deteriorated. Every time I encourage playing together the situation quickly turns ugly with the older one hoarding all the toys, crying and being sent to her room. I don’t know what to say to change things around. I do play solo with my older one when the baby naps, but I don’t really want to referee the entire time she is awake. Any tips? Thank you!!
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we have the same age gap and had to create separate play spaces downstairs. my older child isn't ready to go play in her room by herself for most of the day- she wants to be near me. and her play is pretty involved, and includes a lot of "setting up." The baby just wants to throw everything. It wasn't really fair to either of them to be in the same space. our kitchen (and baby gates) separate the two play spaces, so my daughter can see/talk/tell me to watch, but her stuff is safe.
Occasionally she will now come into where her brother is, and play with him (mostly they just "wrestle" or climb things together. -
I have boys who are exactly 3 years apart, so it may be a bit different, but I explain to my older son that his brother is younger than him and is still learning. He's watching everything my older is doing, and he's learning by his example. So while he throws toys or messes up his tower that he built, he has to help him feel included in what he's playing with.
There is still a lot of whining done by both, but we're trying to encourage being considerate of each other. My younger son doesn't get himself a yogurt without asking his older brother if he wants one. My older son doesn't see anything Sesame Street without running to grab his younger brother to show him. It's sweet when they are considerate of each other, and I think as long as you continue to focus on that, it will slowly start to get better. They will still annoy the poop out of each other, because they're siblings. That's what they do, but the consideration is what will make them closer when they're older.
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Not the same age gap at all, but my kids are 18 months apart. We got our older one to embrace the idea of "babyzilla"
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mine are almost 3 years apart and we watched the daniel tiger episode about baby messing things up and the song goes: "when a baby makes things different, find a way to make things fun" so the older kiddo gets the baby in on the action by offering something else or playing a different way to include a crazy baby/toddler into the mix and make it fun instead of a distraction.
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We just repeat that he is still a baby, he is learning, he loves his big brothers and wants to play with them, etc. I have the older brothers get toys that it's ok for the one year old to knock down/destroy. So they can build their huge towers or creations but also stack up some smaller ones for their brother to play with. Same thing with puzzles - one for the bigger boys to put together and one for the baby to pull apart. When he starts going after his brothers' then just take a few seconds to rebuild his. So far this has worked best for us. Separate spaces would cause a whole lot of baby tears and I want them to learn to play with each other anyway.
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@Mrs. Dolphin: Haha yes we do this a lot too. "Ahh the baby monster knocked it down/made a mess!"
We only have a 2 year gap; for the most part I just accept that there is always some crying/whining, but I do use play time as teaching time to BOTH of them. For DD1 to have more patience/grace, and for DD2 to not snatch/destroy things.
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