Rough touching with new baby

[Anonymous]

Hi. I'm sure somehere has been there done that with my current issue so hoping for some advice.

My 5 yo SN son loves babies and young kids and constantly wants to touch and stroke them especially their heads and faces. And, on top of that, he's touch isn't the gentlest yet, probably due to his motor control issues.

We do our best to try to limit his touching by not allowing it all with parents and kids we don't know, even if it means picking him up in a screaming fit over it. For those that do allow it, we encourage him to be soft and gentle which he does sometimes after repeated admonitions, but sometimes not and we have to physically remove him.

We now have a newborn and are trying all of this with the new baby but it just doesn't seem to be resonating. He is constantly trying to climb the crib to touch the baby, when I hold the baby to feed or otherwise, he scales the couch and wants to sit as close as possible and constantlly touch the baby which ends up being him poking it, slapping it, grabbing at it. We are trying to positively reinforce other negative, saying "gentle touching" and showing him how to do that, but most times I have no choice but to do the negative because he continues to do what I told him not, he knows not to, but just persists anyway. I want him to enjoy his baby brother and feel like he's important, because he is, but I cannot have him physically manhandling our baby.

What have you done? What can I do? Just more of the same of what we are doing and hoping the "newness" of the baby wears off and he just stops?

[Anonymous]

My five year old SN daughter also loves babies and has similar issues with motor control. I have gotten her several baby dolls with their accoutrements and we practice how to hold a baby and take care of it. She likes to feed the baby and pretend to bathe it and it's good for her fine motor to do so. And I think it's good parenting practice for both boys and girls! When it's time to hold a friend's baby, which she really wants to do, we hold the baby together, with her in my lap and the baby in both our arms. (It helps that she's quite small). If she smacks the baby or is too rough, the baby has to go back to mom.

Since your boy sounds ambulatory, how about asking him to get things for you, like a diaper, a paci, a wipe, etc. Make him your all around helper and make sure he has a job to do. My girl would love that but unfortunately isn't ambulatory enough. My daughter also likes to sing to babies, to tell them stories. Perhaps your son can assist at giving a small bottle with some help? Or assist with a bath?

[Anonymous]

mittens

[Anonymous]

18:11. Thank you so much for the ideas. He does really, really, really want to help so I think that may actually work for us. Thanks again.