DS1 is almost 2.5 years old and DS2 was born just over 3 weeks ago. My husband was able to take 2 weeks off for paternity leave and since he has gone back to work, we have had a number of relatives and friends come by to visit. We have all tried our best to not let attention to the newborn affect or lessen the attention my first son receives, but for anyone with two children, it is difficult to juggle both.

We have noticed some behavior from DS1 - being too rough with our newborn son which we would like to correct in the "right" way. DS1 always wants to touch the baby, whether it be holding him in his lap (I am right there), to touching his ears, his hair, holding his hands, etc. But then he will lean too closely in and sometimes lean on the baby with his weight. I am not sure if he is doing this on purpose to hurt the baby or just wanting to be close.

He has also kicked the baby in the head by accident and on purpose. He will get close to the baby with a toy of his and then hit him with it. He has even gone as far as rolling too closely to the baby with his plasma car (baby's head was under the plasma car but thankfully not close enough to the well to be rolled over).

In most all of these instances, I am right there but am fooled into thinking DS1 likes the baby too much. I am now thinking he is being sneaky and wanting to hurt the baby bc he is jealous.

Tonight DS1 got a quick firm spank on the butt for hitting the baby with his toy. He started crying and we attempted to explain to him why he was punished and asked him to say sorry to the baby. [he did not but we were so sad about spanking him i suppose we let it go]

Has anyone experienced this and what advice would you give? We believe in spanking but only sparingly and in the appropriate situation. Anyone have any advice on how to get our toddler to be more gentle (we have already tried to tell him to be gentle and show him what it means), and if he doesn't listen, how to appropriately handle disciplining him?