I have a 3 week old and a 22 month old. For the first two weeks my oldest often had big cries when I had to breast feed and she couldn’t have my lap all to herself. We did our best to acknowledge her sadness and talk about how hard it is to have to share me with a new baby brother. She seems to be dealing better with breast feeds now, and will sit beside me while we read books together.

However, she has started responding very intensely to other challenging moments, for example having to put on a jumper she doesn’t want, and immediately starts crying and saying ‘I’m upset, I’m tired, want to have a sleep in the buggy’. This is happening numerous times a day now. She is only allowed her dummy when she is sleeping, and I am pretty sure it is this comfort she is really after, I have been going with it, putting her into the buggy and tucking her up with her dummy and blanket. She very rarely goes to sleep unless it is at her normal nap time. Once she calms down she renounces the dummy and asks to get out and play again.

I am really unsure about whether I should be going along with this. Part of me feels like these little comfort retreats are what she needs, but another part of me worries that she is seeking comfort from the dummy when actually she just needs more quality time with me. Myself and my husband are currently centring everything around giving her quality time so it is not that she is missing it too much, although she is definitely getting a lot less from me than before.

I am finding it really upsetting that her underlying lack of ease is so strong that tiny things set it off and she just wants to retreat from everything with her dummy in her buggy.

I would really like some advice if possible!

What I am saying is that if you let her know in those moments that it’s okay with you that she feels like hitting (while also letting her know that you won’t let her carry that out), she will feel safe expressing to you her feelings around this difficult transition.

I’m in the UK where houses are often smaller than in the US. Unlike many of my friends, our house is large enough to have a room that we have managed to make completely safe for a toddler. However, we don’t really have much more space than that downstairs. My elder child has his bedroom but he always wants to play downstairs rather than up in his bedroom. And ultimately they both always want to be wherever I am. How do you suggest handling this? They play together very happily much of the time, but sometimes it clearly gets too much for them both.

(Enjoying your new podcast by the way!)

I have a similar situation to you Juanita – it’s almost impossible to give my son (17 mo) and daughter (3.5yr) separate play spaces in my small home. Now my smaller one can climb he can get up to the table where his sister used to have her ‘safe space’ for colouring etc so now she has nowhere safe from his playful hands and he definitely has nowhere safe from her! All ideas welcome!

When you say “If she can express these feelings to you safely this way, she will be less likely to act on them” are you referring to her expressing these feelings by hitting? Or some other way? I wasn’t sure since you said she would safely express them.

It’s very important to have a safe place for your baby, so that you can prevent this dangerous behavior. I would not leave them alone together. If you are there, stop your child from hitting (by placing your hand in her way or getting between them, if you need to) while also acknowledging, nonjudgmentally, “You feel like hitting. I will stop you.” If you say any more than that, I would only keep acknowledging, “You want to hit. You feel like hitting”, while capably preventing her from doing so. This lets her know that you are okay with the feelings she’s expressing with this action, but that you will not let her follow through with the action. If she can express these feelings to you safely this way, she will be less likely to act on them.

My 2 year old right now hits my 3 month old all the time. Really hard, in his face. Over and over again. I am out of ideas on how to get her to stop. any ideas?