Friday 19 February 2010

Suggestions please!

My sister in law as some of you will know had a baby boy 8 weeks before we had Imogen and we have been attempting to share the childcare.

She had a baby girl a month ago and yester day was the first time Imogen has gone to her Aunties since a few weeks before the baby was born, the plan being for everyone to try and get back into routine and back to normal.

The first day didn’t go great; Imogen was more than happy playing with Jack as usual but every time my sister in law picked up baby Chloe to either change or feed her Imogen became hysterical. This continued until my brother in law came home from work, once there was another adult in the house Imogen didn’t seem to mind anyone picking the baby up.

Today is day two and unfortunately has been worse than the first, for the morning Imogen has been more hysterical than yesterday and for longer periods.

At one point my poor sister in law had Jack and Imogen in highchairs for their lunch, she picked Chloe up, Imogen started screaming and Jack threw his lunch up everywhere….

My mother in law has collected Imogen this afternoon to give my sister in law a break and has taken her out shopping, apparently she is back to her normal happy self.

The problem is that she is now going to think if she kicks off enough Grandma will take her out but she is too young for us to either talk to her about it properly or punish her for being “naughty”

I’m really worried that my sister in law is going to decide she doesn’t want to look after Imogen anymore, I mean who would blame her, her children are both behaving lol

How do you teach a 15 month old to chill the f**k out?????

4 comments:

petoskystone said...

*really* sorry to have to tell you this, BUT, the only thing to do is let her scream it out. once she figues out jealous tantrums don't work, she'll knock it off & jack will learn the same lesson through observation. as an alternative, you could try the electronic babysitter as a distraction (phineas & ferb, dora, & ni-hau are faves in my house). sisterinlaw will require timeouts more than imogen will (as will you ;). this is an issue in my houselhold as well- i live w/my dtr., soninlaw, & 2 grandchildren (isabella is 4 & elijah is 2) w/#3 sofia due in late feb/early march.

Polgara said...

Hi Petoskystone,
This is pretty much the conclusion i had come to i'm just not sure Davina can hack it in the meantime!
I'm just gonna have to keep my fingers crossed grrr
I have goone to leave you return comments a few times when you have commented but cant seem to find a blog for you???
Pol x

petoskystone said...

no blog--just on facebook, or at the email address!

AngelConradie said...

Thats tough indeed!
Erm... I've never had to deal with a situation like that myself- but perhaps spend time with her with the new baby?