When you have kids who innately just click and adore each other, it kind of throws you for a loop when suddenly you have kids who can’t stand each other.
When Sugar Plum found out she’d be a big sister for the first time, she was ecstatic. She adored her little brother from the moment they met, and she was generous and gentle and excited from the get-go. Mighty Guy, on the other hand, is not naturally excited about having a little brother. From the moment I forced him to wear a “Big Brother” onesie to come to the hospital, he has always resented this little intrusion into his life, it seems.
Now that Big Easy is crawling everywhere and pulling up on everything, their relationship is more of a ticking time bomb than it used to be. Granted, there are neutral moments when I lock them in a bedroom together so Mighty Guy can figure out how to exist in the same space as his little brother, but more often than not, Mighty Guy can be heard whining about how he doesn’t want Big Easy to touch him, or be near him, or look at him. There are occasional moments when our quirky almost 3-year-old seems to have at least a mild affection for the baby, but those moments are few and far between. He is usually very up front about not wanting to be around Big Easy, not loving Big Easy and never caring if he’s friends with Big Easy.
I understood it when it came to sharing toys – I mean, yeah, that’s a tough pill to swallow. But “He can’t look at me”?! How do I handle that? Is this how all same-sex siblings relate? Are our boys in the norm (and let me be clear – Big Easy is obsessed with following his big brother, so is Mighty Guy normal?)? It won’t be long before they’re the same size. I can already tell we’re going to have some knockout fights between the two. Parents of siblings who don’t seem to mutually love one another, any tips? We’ve got a long road ahead of us if this dynamic continues in this way…
I’d love to hear how you foster sibling relationships (especially in families with 3 kids, where there’s an uneven number), encourage best-friend-ness and nurture the tiny shreds of affection I know are in there somewhere.
The Natural Lens 