https://boards.hellobee.com/ Pregnancy, Baby and Parenting blog, by Hellobee en Fri, 08 May 2026 17:39:45 +0000 https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/sharing-between-siblings#post-2880509 Thu, 11 Apr 2019 18:29:00 +0000 petitenoisette 2880509@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>Another voice of commiseration...just this afternoon my older LO (4) hurt the baby (1) twice trying to take a toy away from her. Which is the only thing that really makes me lose my temper with the older one. And then it can feel so unfair bc it’s not like you’re ever mad at the baby. Though I do sometimes pretend to scold her for my older daughter’s sake. </p> <p>I think the iPad is way too high value and of interest for both kids and so I would not let my older one use one when the baby is around. Sometimes my older daughter has quiet time in her room and I let her use my phone or iPad to listen to stories, and that’s a nice break for everyone! </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/sharing-between-siblings#post-2880477 Thu, 11 Apr 2019 15:33:29 +0000 LadyDi 2880477@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>I feel you, it's hard. And also very confusing. Our oldest is almost four and the baby is 14 months. The big kid definitely knows to play at a table or up on the couch or bed if he doesn't want his brother to bother him. It gets confusing when I talk to him all day about sharing but then he pulls out his tiny legos and I'm like "well don't share those!"</p> <p>On the plus side, now that the baby is starting to get older the big kid is WAY more into being a big brother. They've started to play together (sort of) but he LOVES showing the baby how to do things. The other day the baby grabbed a hammer and hammered a ball into this ramp toy for the first time and the big kid was SO EXCITED, he started jumping up and down and cheering. It's so heartwarming and sweet. It really makes up for all of the "MOM HE'S TOUCHING MY THINGS" comments that I field throughout the day. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/sharing-between-siblings#post-2880438 Thu, 11 Apr 2019 13:01:53 +0000 Baby Boy Mom 2880438@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>Our older kids (5 and 7) each have a "treasure box"- size of a shoebox where they can keep things that they don't want to share. Everything else belongs to everyone! So yeah...4 is a hard age for sharing in my experience...but I would pretty much emphasize that the toys belong to everyone in the family (you and your SO as well) so everyone can play with them. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/sharing-between-siblings#post-2880425 Thu, 11 Apr 2019 11:27:20 +0000 muffinsmuffins 2880425@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>Ha thanks for responses and solidarity that there isn’t an easy solution to this! I figured it was only the beginning of ‘fun’ between siblings but wanted to make sure there wasn’t something I’m overlooking. I feel bad for both kids! Big bro is like woah wtf is this baby doing taking all my stuff and won’t leave me alone?! Little bro is so keen to watch his brother and be involved...breaks my heart a little! I think we will go through our toy collection and isolate toys for everyone to the common area and encourage use of our dining room table for DS1. And then just muddle through it! </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/sharing-between-siblings#post-2880424 Thu, 11 Apr 2019 11:21:15 +0000 KT326 2880424@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>I thought I would avoid this conflict because my kids are 5 years apart..... hahahaha I was so wrong. </p> <p>It's getting better now that the youngest is almost 2.5 and the oldest is 7. They have their own special toys they like to play with but for everything else, they have to share. I've taught my 7 year old to always make sure he has an extra of something (like cars) because it is inevitable that the younger one will come over and try to steal his toys. This way he is able to give him one and they are both happy. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/sharing-between-siblings#post-2880406 Thu, 11 Apr 2019 10:06:07 +0000 ShootingStar 2880406@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>My two fight constantly over toys. Whatever one has the other one wants. The best solution I’ve come up with is tell my older one that he can stay downstairs with all of us and share or he can play in his room alone and have that toy all to himself. Usually he either decides to stay with us or is gone for about 5 minutes. I’m hoping one day the two year old will finally have the language skills to understand her brother had it first. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/sharing-between-siblings#post-2880400 Thu, 11 Apr 2019 09:06:08 +0000 graceandjoy 2880400@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>Welcome to sibling life, haha! I have a 4 and 2 year old. Not sharing/fighting over toys is a daily occurrence! </p> <p>I always tell my oldest that if there's something special you don't want your sister to have, please put it somewhere safe. Anywhere she can reach/get to is fair game. So far she has not tried to put everything away, so that works.</p> <p>There are certain things we only do when sister's napping; like nail polish, aqua beads. Stuff that my 2 year old just cannot do without making a huge mess. </p> <p>For everything else, it's always juggling act! I do find that sometimes letting them work it out, works! Someone may cry/yell/whatever but if I usually just let them be, someone will end up sharing or forgetting about it. With my 4 year old, I usually deflect to ask her how we should handle the situation. For my 2 year old, I have to remove if she's being the instigator. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/sharing-between-siblings#post-2880369 Thu, 11 Apr 2019 07:05:23 +0000 brownepiano 2880369@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>My kids are closer in age too but we kept having a new set of problems every time DS 2 grew and was able to get to more and more things. DS 1 thought whatever DS 2 wasn't allowed to play with would be his forever, and then DS2 would get a little older and be able to handle it. We had to repeat a lot : the toys are for everyone and when DS2 is old enough, he is going to play with them too. It was a rough few year or two until now where they pretty much both get everything.<br /> A few special toys are allowed in DS1 room and he's getting better at sharing them as he gets older and DS2 gets more careful. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/sharing-between-siblings#post-2880353 Wed, 10 Apr 2019 23:55:02 +0000 bhbee 2880353@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@PinkElephant: so funny this is my middle child too!! He is such a train wreck in general but he has never once messed up anything serious in there despite lots of access and only being 2 when she first went. Makes you wonder how much of his other behavior is deliberate destruction :silly: </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/sharing-between-siblings#post-2880347 Wed, 10 Apr 2019 22:28:33 +0000 PinkElephant 2880347@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@bhbee: @misolee: I still think of my 2.5 yr old as a baby, so it’s quite comical when she casually strolls into her sister’s rooms during school hours and bee lines right for their drawers of the good stuff - jewelers, lip smackers, treasured Shopkins, tiny seashells. She knows just where they keep it and loves getting into it - remarkably she is pretty gentle with it all; I think she realizes she’ll get banished if she’s not careful! </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/sharing-between-siblings#post-2880346 Wed, 10 Apr 2019 22:22:02 +0000 Mrs. Turtle 2880346@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>Ours are closer together (almost 3.5 and almost 1) and for now, we basically say if O wants to play with something at a level where baby can reach, she's going to have to share. If she wants to keep something away from her, she can use the counter, her bed, etc.. O is hard on her own stuff though and not particularly attached to anything specific, so that helps. As they get older, I think we will go the sharing route for almost everything. I don't like forcing sharing in the moment, but I don't think we will have much that is truly off limits to one or the other. Our house is too small and they're close enough in age that even now, they like a lot of the same things. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/sharing-between-siblings#post-2880338 Wed, 10 Apr 2019 21:31:15 +0000 misolee 2880338@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@bhbee</p> <p>Mine too. As soon as older sister went to kinder this past year, little bro (now 3) was all up in her stuff. It was the best couple of hours I had 😁 </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/sharing-between-siblings#post-2880337 Wed, 10 Apr 2019 21:31:06 +0000 PinkElephant 2880337@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>I have three girls - 6.5, 5, and 2.5. This is definitely a hard thing - we've had to work at it and have tried different approaches. It has gotten better as the youngest one now has things that interest the older ones, so sharing goes in all directions. Where we are now is basically:</p> <p>-"sets" like magformers, our brio train, blocks, the play kitchen/food, etc. belong to everyone, regardless of which piece may have at some point been given specifically to which kid.</p> <p>- things that go together, like LOL dolls and all their parts, or accessories for (fake) American Girl dolls, may "belong" to one child or the other when they sort them out, but at the end of the day, everyone gets to play with them and they need to be shared. </p> <p>- very specific items, like the larger dolls themselves, definitely belong to one girl - I wouldn't let DD1 take DD2's doll to bed with her, for example. But I do expect some level of sharing, like allowing DD1's friend to use one of DD2's dolls if DD2 isn't around.</p> <p>-as they've gotten older, I am able to explain better to them that it's ridiculous to have two or three of the same thing - if they are able to share the things they each have, there's a better variety for ALL of them to play with, rather than doubling up on the same/similar toys. Also, while it's not the kindest, I've told the oldest before that all of our real "baby" toys were really given to mommy and daddy when they were expecting their first baby for the FAMILY to play with together, no matter how many people that family became. Some people might not like this, but it actually seemed to resonate with her!</p> <p>All of my "you must share" rules include the unspoken rule that this only holds true if the toys are being treated with respect. If one sister were to repeatedly damage toys that ultimately "belong" to another, I will say that I have to start differentiating what belongs to whom, and she can't continue to use her sister's things. One example of this is that I have started buying my eldest her own (nicer) markers/crayons, and letting her keep those in her own room, because the younger girls are still pretty rough on art supplies.</p> <p>For your situation, maybe you can try to get on the sharing track by specifically buying some things "for" DS2 that would interest DS1 as well. Some "baby" things my older girls have really liked to borrow from their littlest sister (even though you'd think they'd consider them too babyish) have been various Little People sets, a set of plush horses that come in a plush zipper barn, a noisy baby doll....that way you can make the point that DS2 is also sharing with DS1. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/sharing-between-siblings#post-2880326 Wed, 10 Apr 2019 20:38:57 +0000 bhbee 2880326@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>I do think it gets easier over time, but my oldest is still not that good at sharing sometimes! My middle crawled at 6m (oldest was 3 then) - seemingly specifically to get sister’s cool stuff. I think what honesty happened is she realized her advantages - she could put stuff in her room (that part of house was gated off), she could use the counter and table (until he got bigger at least). She still loves to be the boss and in charge :silly: and I think that helped her feel in control of it. We still had tears about it of course but it gave something to do. However, we only let her do that for stuff that is not age appropriate for the younger, the rest is shared. At 4.5 maybe you can set parameters to help him understand what that means - small pieces, breakable, special building toy set up, etc. </p> <p>I hate to say it but it kind of set up the dynamic where now (4 and 7) she thinks she gets to share all his stuff (and he’s mostly ok with this) but he does not get the reverse. However she goes to school every day and he does not and the second she went to kinder he started playing in her room :silly: </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/sharing-between-siblings#post-2880324 Wed, 10 Apr 2019 20:23:33 +0000 Ms. RV 2880324@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>Mine are 3.5 and 10 months so a little closer in age. If the baby grabs a big kid toy, I say playfully "no G... that's not your toy. That's C's toy!" The baby usually laughs, and the big kid ends up feeling a little better that I'm seemingly on her side. </p> <p>We have also specified toys that only the big kid can play with, only the baby can play with, and ones they share. They are in different color cube storage bins. It was decided by the parents and is mostly agreed on by the big kid. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/sharing-between-siblings#post-2880321 Wed, 10 Apr 2019 19:59:38 +0000 jhd 2880321@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@muffinsmuffins: we have the same gap. And we are experiencing the exact same problem. No ideas just solidarity! Baby brother got nice new toys for his birthday, has plenty of hand me downs, and only wants to play with things that belong to big brother and often they are things that he shouldn’t be playing with that are too small etc. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/sharing-between-siblings#post-2880319 Wed, 10 Apr 2019 19:28:26 +0000 Petitduck 2880319@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>My two are much closer in age, but are struggling right now with sharing and I do what @Foodnerd81: says. The only toy my oldest doesn’t have to share is her special stuffy that she carries around the house 24/7. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/sharing-between-siblings#post-2880316 Wed, 10 Apr 2019 19:14:21 +0000 Foodnerd81 2880316@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>My kids are a little closer together, which might make this particular issue a bit easier, I guess. What if you set a limit, like, you can choose 5 toys that you don't want to share or are two special? We've done that for playdates when my daughter doesn't want to share a special something, but I did have to limit it or it became "they're ALL too special". </p> <p>I also just think this is a hard phase no matter what you do or how you handle it. Oldest kids aren't used to sharing their stuff all the time. It's hard. You aren't handling it wrong, it's just hard and they will eventually figure it out. </p> <p>My kids are 5.5 and 3 and the rule in our house now is we share toys. When they get something new they can kind of hog it for a while but eventually everything has to be shared. Some things are kept in their own bedrooms and are shared less. But now the problem isn't so much 'this is MY toy', it's that they both want to play with the same toy, at the same time, no matter what it is or that it's been sitting unplayed with for weeks. Siblings do that. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/sharing-between-siblings#post-2880308 Wed, 10 Apr 2019 18:54:47 +0000 ALV91711 2880308@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>DS2, same age, is on the verge of crawling. During Christmas break we put all toys that aren’t baby safe either in DS1’s (6yo) room or the plat area in the basement. We put baby safe toys on the shelf in the dining area. He is aloud to bring these toys into the living area to play but in general it has to be at the kitchen table. We didn’t make DS1 give any old toys like his little people to the baby but instead asked that he share. He has decided on his own to give some things as he realizes he’s too old for them. </p> <p>I can see issues arising as the baby gets mobile though. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/sharing-between-siblings#post-2880303 Wed, 10 Apr 2019 18:30:24 +0000 muffinsmuffins 2880303@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>DS1 is 4.5 and DS2 is 7 months. Our younger is extremely mobile for his age: he crawls, pulls up to stand and is very curious and getting into everything. This of course is driving DS1 crazy because a lot of our toys are his old toys and of course baby brother doesn’t want anything to do with the actual baby toys and wants to get at big brothers big kid stuff. Our older is very possessive and likes his things just so.</p> <p>I feel we are not handling it very well. We tried saying our oldest can take things that are special and put them up on the table or in his room. He then tries to take everything to his room. Today our older was on the iPad on the couch and little brother pulled up to see him and DS1 starts screaming he’s gonna take the iPad, he’s bugging him, etc.</p> <p>So, what are your best tips to handle this?! I feel like suddenly DS2 is everywhere and we haven’t had time to create a non confusing game plan. HELP! </p>