Author’s practical guidance
A new baby in the house
Source named in the book: Siblings Without Rivalry (Faber & Mazlish) · Emotion coaching (Gottman)
From your child's side, a new baby is a demotion announced without consultation.
Say this now
“You wish you could have me all to yourself. That makes sense.”
Name it out loud before they have to act it out.
“You were a baby too. I held you exactly like this.”
Photographs of their own babyhood do more work than any speech.
Do this
- Protect ten minutes a day that the baby cannot interrupt. Same slot, phone away.
- Let the regression happen. A week of baby talk ends faster if nobody fights it.
- Give them a real job, not a fake one: fetch the diaper, choose the outfit, sing the song that stops the crying.
- Blame the baby out loud sometimes: "She always cries when we're playing. Annoying, isn't it."
- Never leave them alone with the baby in the first months, however gentle they seem.
Avoid this
- "You're the big one now!" — promotion is exactly what they did not ask for.
- "Don't be jealous, you love your sister." — telling a feeling it is wrong does not remove it.
- Blaming the baby for your unavailability — "not now, I'm feeding" — over and over.
If it repeats
Jealousy usually peaks around the second month, when the visitors stop and the reality settles. If your older child is hurting the baby rather than protesting about them, treat it as a supervision problem first and a feelings problem second.
Why the book suggests this
From your child's side, a new baby is a demotion announced without consultation. The person who was the whole of your attention now shares it with someone who cannot even be reasoned with, and who gets held all day for doing nothing.
The regression that follows — baby talk, wanting a bottle, accidents after months of dry nights — is not manipulation. It is a hypothesis being tested: if being a baby is what earns holding, perhaps I should be one.
Related prepared situations
What happened next?
From this collection
Same Words: Both Parents
45 prepared situations in this family area.