My Child Wakes The Baby Up with Jealousy Outbursts
Question: Our daughter has outbursts especially when her brother is nursing to sleep. She seems purposely trying to keep him up. How do we get this fixed?
Answer: Dear Parent,
I am going to give you two different answers. If your goal is to have control over sleep time and quiet for the baby at specific times, the first part of my response will address ways to help your daughter stay calm. In the later part I will offer you a completely different possibility, one of making peace with the way of it while still striving to assist your daughter in feeling content.
1) My guess is that it is extremely difficult for your daughter to be at peace with her new life since the arrival of her baby brother. Please read the sections in my book about siblings, jealousy, and healing the pain of feeling displaced by the baby. The thrust of it is that your daughter needs to express herself fully with your validation and she needs one-on-one time with you every day.
When the baby goes for a nap, or falls asleep at night, it is a perfect opportunity to give your daughter a bit of the time with you she so longs for. Tell your daughter
that the baby’s sleep time is when she gets to be with mommy. Then when the baby is nursing and you know he will fall asleep, say (with excitement and loving anticipation) “as soon as your brother is asleep you and I will have our time together.” Even before you sit down to breastfeed, you can get her excited and busy preparing the books you will be reading. In other words, she will want to be quiet because she will want the baby to go to sleep. Even if the baby sleeps in your arms, you and she can read, play and snuggle while he is asleep.
In the bigger picture, your goal is to help your daughter feel so good so that she has no pent up anxiety to burst out of her. Your daughter has a very valid reason for her outbursts. Understand her self-expression, encourage it when the baby is awake by listening, asking and validating. Treat the cause; when she is content and secure, she will have nothing needing to burst out of her and she will be your partner in making sure the baby can fall sleep.
2) In tribal and natural societies, more often than not, babies are not put to sleep. They are carried on the body of the mother or a youth who are actively pursuing their own activities. No time is set for the baby’s sleep. In the midst of noise, motion and life, the baby sleeps and wakes and life goes on. At night, mothers are not devoted to an uninterrupted sleep. So she goes to sleep and wakes up as needed. Indeed, sometimes, our rigid ideas about sleep time get in the way of peace.
When you inquiry into the truth of the urgency that the baby sleep at that time, you may discover that, naturally, it is not really urgent for you to control sleep time. Our anxiety over sleeping certain amount of hours at night, and our fear of the difficulty a tired baby may cause are much greater than reality. I know we have all the proof, but our proof is tinted by our anxiety. Same events without anxiety and without resisting are completely different. The baby falls asleep, your daughter bursts out noisily. The baby wakes up. When you are at peace, the baby is much less likely to cry because he senses that everything is fine. So you listen to your daughter and validate her feelings and life goes on just fine.
With care,
Naomi Aldort Ph.D.
Author, Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves
Blog by Naomi Aldort
Naomi Aldort is the author of Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves. Parents from around the globe seek Aldort's advice by phone, in person and through her workshops, teleclasses, by reading her book and by listening to her CDs. She is an engaging public speaker and a life transforming family therapist. Her advice columns and interviews appear in attachment parenting, home.... read more
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