Sibling Rivalry

I was very worried about how Josiah would do once his little sister was born. I made preparations. I had his birthday party all planned out, I had made arrangements for his grandparents to be here so that he would get enough attention. And I was mentally prepared for things to go terribly.

When he first came to the hospital I asked him if he wanted to see the baby. He said "no". I didn't push him. Every time he came to visit us I asked the same thing and got the same response. When we brought Sophia home from the hospital we had Josiah go with grandma and grandpa for the afternoon so that we could get settled. Still he did not want to have anything to do with her when he got home.

The first week Luke was home. The second week my mom was with us, the week after that my grandparents joined us, and after that Luke's mom stayed with us and then took Josiah to the farm for a few days. Josiah got very a good amount of attention at this time. He still did not want to see his sister and would often tell me to "put baby in cradle" or tell me, "mom done feeding baby." He got progressively more whiny and clingy. He asked me to carry him all the time, he wouldn't let anyone else take him potty, and he would get upset when I held Sophia.

When all the guests went home and we began to settle into our new lives things got both better and worse. Worse because now he was incredibly whiny and clingy. He wanted me to hold him all the time. He constantly asked for "somesing" and would begin crying before I even got the chance to say yes or no. He would often just have a constant "ehhh" whine coming out of his mouth for no reason and he would cry at the littlest things. He also stopped going to bed by himself, insisting that someone lay with him. And he stopped sleeping through the night and would come into our room every few hours.

However, he did get better at interacting with his sister. It started with him calling her Sophie instead of "baby." Then he would come over and touch her feet or her head. It progressed into kissing her and then the day came when he asked to hold her. Now he's the sweetest brother. He talks to her all the time (even calling her "gorgeous baby" the other day). He offers her his blankie when she's crying. He gives her a pacifier when she's trying to sleep. He wants to touch her hands, feet, face, hair. And every night he kisses her and says "goodnight Sophie, love you."

And ever since Sophia started taking a regular nap (about a week ago) the whining has stopped. I know he was just feeling left out and now that he gets a good hour of alone time with mommy he doesn't whine or cry as much. He's still is having trouble going to sleep (it's like it was before we even started sleep training) and he comes into our room at least twice every night. But we'll work on all that later. I'm just happy that he now loves his sister.