Sibling Love
Posted by Arwen Mosher in Family on Wednesday, September 03, 2008 7:00 PM
My sister has a baby, Matthew. He is six weeks old, and my daughter Camilla loves him. She talks about “baby Mafew” all the time. She gets excited when we’re going to see him. When she’s around him she wants to be as close to him as possible - so much so that I’ve had to make a rule that she may only touch his hands and feet, and kiss the top of his head.
She’s fascinated by baby activities; we talk every day about Matthew nursing, and Matthew sleeping, and Matthew burping (!). In short, she is baby crazy.
In fact, my sister has commented ruefully that Camilla is far more interested in her baby cousin than his own brother is, and this is true. Daniel loves Matthew, and appreciates him in theory, but in practice he is usually most interested in having his mom hand Matthew off to someone else so he can have her to himself.
Given that we’ll have a new baby in our own house in about five months, I am encouraged by Camilla’s love for Matthew. However, I know that her reaction to a cousin, who doesn’t diminish the amount of attention she gets from Mama and Daddy, is probably going to be different from her reaction to a sibling, who does.
It seems to be a widely accepted fact in our culture that first children are jealous of second children. It’s certainly true that a new baby in the house is an adjustment for everyone, but in my experience there are a lot of different reactions to the presence of a new baby, and it really depends on the child.
For example, my parents insist that I loved my eighteen-months-younger sister from the moment she was born, and doted on her. The stories they tell seem to attest to that - even one about my mother being horrified to find two-year-old me bouncing on the six-month-old baby’s stomach… only to notice a second later that the baby was laughing with glee. I always took such loving care of my sister. My parents, boring adults that they were, would never have thought to amuse her in that fashion.
On the other hand, I’ve heard horror stories of toddlers who refused to acknowledge the presence of their new baby siblings, or tried to hurt them, or asked their parents to send them back. It’s easy to think of many reasons why little ones might feel this way, and understand why they do. I guess it’s our job as parents to help them deal with those feelings, and learn to love the babies.
So while we prepare for the arrival of our second child, I’d love to hear about the experiences of the more seasoned parents out there. How did your children - not just the firstborns but any of them - react to the appearance of a younger sibling? How did you help make the transition as easy as possible? What worked, and what didn’t? I can use as much advice as I can get!
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