Sibling Jeolousy

(Ern claimed the mitten is her boxing glove)

I am in my 33th weeks of pregnancy.

All along, we have brief Ching Ern that she will be a Che Che soon. We get her involved in most of the baby's activities like bring her along during the monthly gynae check up, helping to fold baby laundry and shopping for the baby. When we asked her where is her baby, she would point to my tummy. She would placed her head or kiss on my tummy when I asked her to sayang the baby.

All along, we know she didn't get the full idea of me expecting a baby but from our conversation and her reaction about the topic of sibling, we anticipated the sibling jealousy will only come in after baby is born!

We were all wrong!!!

For the past 2 months, Ern has been cranky/naughty and we relate that to the Terrible Twos. Never thought of sibling jealousy until she refused to go to school since last week.

Our girl started to 'sense' the sibling arrival NOW and behaved unusually:

- cry and whine for no reason
- When we stopped talking to her to let her cool off, she thought we are angry at her and she cried. Keep on saying we are angry at her.
- When teacher asked her to go back to her seat, she cried and said 'teacher angry'.
- Refused to go to school almost every morning
- Trying to get our attention by giving us wrong answer with lots of 'no'.
- Cross her hand and turn her head to the side way when we said things that doesn't pleased her needs.
- Want to have a company either within her sight or we need to answer her if we are somewhere as a 'security assurance' that she is not alone.
- Cried in school when the teacher punished other students!

She is very 'fragile' in her emotional world right now. You can tell she seeks attention from us! *sigh*

The teachers and I draw a conclusion that she is going through the phase of sibling jealousy and started to feel insecure. We were asked to be sensitive on the words we used, be more patience on her and continue to 'brain wash' and assured her that everyone love and care for her.

We know sibling jealousy can't be completely prevented. Just hope what we are doing is to minimize it and try to convert it into positive feelings. It's a phase for Ern to go through and accept the fact!

We expect the sibling jeolousy to be more drastic after the baby is born.