Sibling Rivalry Help

When my daughter was young I had a family daycare home, which I operated like a small preschool. But once I had a neighbor who was in the Navy and only got two weeks of maternity leave, but the base childcare wouldn't accept babies younger than three months. Because she was desperate I agreed to care for the baby.

To my surprise, the other kids were all jealous of the baby, although they had never seemed jealous of each other. When I asked them about it they said I loved the baby more than I loved them. I assured them I didn't and asked what made them think so.

They couldn't answer.

Finally one articulate little boy said I loved the baby more than I loved them because I hugged it all the time. All the others agreed.

I explained that when I held the baby in my arms I wasn't hugging it. Since the baby couldn't walk or crawl it couldn't get from one place to another without being carried and because it couldn't eat or drink by itself I had to hold it to give it a bottle.

All the kids relaxed immediately and there was never another sign that they were jealous of the baby.

Whenever there's a new baby in a family maybe parents should explain the same thing to their other little ones. Although some sibling rivalry is inevitable, that might help keep it to a minimum.

Pink And Blue

I was two-and-a-half years old when my brother was born and loved having a baby brother. He was cute and I loved being allowed to hold him and give him his bottle.

Whenever we went out walking to the store or to visit a neighbor our mother would push my little brother in his baby carriage. (We lived on the East coast so they were called carriages, but out West everyone called them baby buggies.) Unlike today's strollers, the carriages had no straps and needed high sides so the babies couldn't fall out.

I enjoyed the walks except for one thing; nearly ever adult person we encountered would ask my mother if the baby was a boy or a girl and she would have to stop and tell them. Often the person would then waste time oohing and aahing over my brother. I found that very irritating and wondered why people cared about the gender of babies they didn't even know.

I decided when I grew up I'd get someone to invent colored baby carriages. All boy babies would have blue ones and all girl babies would have pink carriages. That way nobody would need to stop people to ask about their babies and life would be much simpler - at least life from a two-year-old's point of view.

Babies Don't Eat Pizza

My last post was about sibling rivalry and the next day I was surprised to get a book in the mail on that very topic. I'd forgotten that author Dianne Danzig had said she'd send me a copy for review.

Babies Don't Eat Pizza is a cute and informative book for kids who have or will soon have new babies in their families. Danzig has years of experience working with newborns and babies and teaching little kids how to be good big brothers and sisters so she knew what was needed in a book like this.

The book does a great job of letting children know what to expect in ways they can identify with, and the tips at the back will be helpful for parents, too.

The illustrations by Debbie Tilley are also cute. I like the way she included families of various ethnicities even though the main family is white. I do wish the pictures of newborns had been a bit more red and wrinkled, but that's a minor thing.

This book would be a great gift for a child who has a pregnant mother or newborn sibling. It will help lots of children understand why babies act the way they do.