Neglected second child

[lchunleo]

Hi all,


i have two children, one 3 years old and one 7 months. we realized that the elder one needs both of our attention that we have to neglect our second one (second one is taken care by our maid). If my wife pays attention to the 2nd one, he will fight for her attention (throws tantrum, or do funny things to force you to take care of him) and so goes to me. How to solve this problem? i do not know how to spilt myself and my time between the two children. any ideas? sorry i know this is not something new, but it is new to me.. :?

[Funz]

This happens when the age gap is close. I experienced the same thing with my kiddos as well. DD was also a rather difficult kid so in the end my maid handled DS most of the time so much so that DS rejected me when he was about 6mths old. I was devastated. Good thing that you seem to be a rather hands on Dad. DH at that time was most MIA.


In the end I told DH he needs to step up and handle DD more so that I can give DS some attention. So when I spend time with DS, DH will handle DD, bring her out, keep her occupied, etc. Initially she protested and gave DH hell but I told her it is Daddy time for her and mummy time for didi. She will get her mummy time and didi will get his Daddy time. She howled saying she wants mummy time all the time. Had to be firm with her and tell her it does not work that way. So the sooner she start spending time with Daddy, I can spend time with didi and very soon it will be mummy time for her. She cried, she threw tantrums, she pretended to have this or that ache, spill this and that and all she got was Daddy or maid, no mummy. After a couple of weeks of that she settled into the routine and will seek Daddy out automatically.

I made the mistake of taking the easy way out by letting my maid handle my son when DD demanded my attention. But after my son rejected me and chose my maid over me, I refuse to let my maid handle DS except to watch over him for a while.

[Imp75]

How abt you have 3 young kids v close in age and the younger ones are twins such that you really have a middle child syndrome problem to deal with. That happened to me. Our eldest kid demanded a lot of attn while the youngest twin was such a troublesome baby, no choice but to leave the well behaved middle child to the maid which unfortunately resulted in the middle child syndrome

[Funz]

Imp75:

How abt you have 3 young kids v close in age and the younger ones are twins such that you really have a middle child syndrome problem to deal with. That happened to me. Our eldest kid demanded a lot of attn while the youngest twin was such a troublesome baby, no choice but to leave the well behaved middle child to the maid which unfortunately resulted in the middle child syndrome

I myself am a middle child. And yup I do know about middle child syndrome, having exhibited some myself.

Guess pretty similar. The other 2 kids have to understand that each and every kid is entitled to mummy's/daddy's time/attention. When things were fine, we never bothered to segregate whose time with who but when we realised that DD was monopolising most of our time and attention, we started carving out our time for each of them individually and together. And we stuck as much as possible to that routine.

I guess we have to be conscious and make the effort to 'stand up' for the quieter or more agreeable child instead of taking them for granted. For me, DD is the demanding one and DS is the agreeable one. While peace will prevail when DS gives in, I will at times step in to stop it.

[JohnYeo]

lchunleo:

Hi all,


i have two children, one 3 years old and one 7 months. we realized that the elder one needs both of our attention that we have to neglect our second one (second one is taken care by our maid). If my wife pays attention to the 2nd one, he will fight for her attention (throws tantrum, or do funny things to force you to take care of him) and so goes to me. How to solve this problem? i do not know how to spilt myself and my time between the two children. any ideas? sorry i know this is not something new, but it is new to me.. :?

Hi lchunleo,

My kids' age are very close to yours, if not similar....DD1 is 3 y.o and DD2 is 10 months old...yes, DD1 is always fighting for attention though I think la, we have given her alot of attention...what works for us is we try out best to do activities which include by DDs and we always encourage sharing of toys (though DD1 says that all the toys belong to her)

It is hard to split yourself...yah, especially when time is so limited and we have so much to do...so why dont include both kids in common play activities...it will not solve the problem...sometimes DD1 will make a lot of noise like DD2 pulled her hair (when in actual fact, DD1 refused to sit farther and let DD2 pulled her hair...and sometimes she likes it....so sending mixed messages to DD2)

so for me, play together lo and we read story to both of them sitting together...not easy but it works sometimes...

John

[ChiefKiasu]

What is the middle child syndrome? Sorry… I only have 2 children and am myself a "last" child.

[JohnYeo]

my guess is the middle child gets neglected because everyone is focusing on the new born (the third child) and the first child, being the eldest one, also gets most of the privileges…

[Funz]

ChiefKiasu:

What is the middle child syndrome? Sorry... I only have 2 children and am myself a \"last\" child.

Have another kid lah and observe the 2nd one.

[janet88]

Funz:

ChiefKiasu:

What is the middle child syndrome? Sorry... I only have 2 children and am myself a \"last\" child.

Have another kid lah and observe the 2nd one.

Eldest one will still get 'recognition' as gor gor or jie jie...youngest one is a newborn or toddler and will be attended to...middle one is neither here nor there. So will definitely do funny things to gain attention.

[Quizzer]

When my second baby was borned my elder son was 5 years old. We also had problems handling both kids at the same time, we don’t have a maid but baby goes to infant care. Both my hubby and me is the main caregivers to our children beside the school. We worked out a plan for ourselves and our kids. Since mine is a 5 days work job while my hubby is on alternate sats off. So our plan goes like this… One half sat morning belongs to our couple time together, one sat is mummy time with the elder boy, one sat is daddy with the elder boy…and sundays we all take turns to look after baby so that baby won’t develop the preference over 1 parent.