From Toddlers2Teens

Since my two oldest children are about 12 years apart, I am going to focus on building a bond between teenagers and infants and/or teenagers and toddlers.

When I became pregnant with my second child, my daughter Amber was very excited. She had always wanted a sibling and she loved children. Amber was (and still is!) a very good big sister and she took to her new brother right away. She bathed him, rocked him, held him, fed him and changed his diaper.

As he got a older she soothed him and sometimes could figure out what was wrong with him before I could. In fact, the two of them were so close that Amber could hold his hand when he was in the backseat of the car screaming, which he did on each and every car ride, and he would calm down. When he started to walk and talk he would walk up to her and call her mommy to which she would answer, “Amber.”

Along with dada and mommy, I think her name was one of the first words he said. Even after he got older and knew she was his sister, he still accidentally called her mommy. He followed her everywhere, ran to her for comfort and sometimes slept in her bed.

When I became pregnant with my third child only 15 months later I realized that I couldn’t “burden” my oldest daughter with another baby and I kept that one - my second daughter - close to me. Since Andre often preferred for Amber to do things for him, I made sure to do everything for Amareah.

So, I had two siblings who were bonded early on and two who didn’t bond until later. If you are pregnant or have a young infant and an older child, here are some tips to develop the bond early on:

1. Facilitate your older child taking care of the youngest. It can be helping you with baths, changing diapers or feeding them. It can even be something as simple as spending cuddle time or play time with the baby when they get home from school.
2. Make sure there is something special that only the two of them do together. It could be eatting breakfast together or reading books. I, for one, don’t like bedtime reading (I know, tsk tsk on me!) but my daughter really liked it. When my then husband was at work, Amber would read the baby a story.
3. Don’t get jealous. This may seem unnecessary to say, but there are some moms who can’t handle hearing their baby call someone else mommy regardless of who the other person is. If this happens, use gentle correction. Sometimes we would say, “No, that’s sister” and other times we’d use her name.

When my third child was a toddler, she started following behind Amber who was almost 14 at the time. They started doing things together and getting to know each other. One day I said something like, ‘Amareah really likes doing xyz with you.’

Amber replied, “Yea, I used to think she didn’t like me.”

I explained to her that I didn’t want her to have another little one following her around so closely and kept Amareah close to me. Their relationship is a little rocky, but it is constantly developing. Amareah, who’s now 4, and 17-year-old Amber do girly things together.

Amber paints her sister’s fingernails, they went window shopping for prom dresses, Amber does Amareah’s hair or draws pictures for her. They love dancing and singing together, and Amareah looks up to her big sister.

With siblings whose relationships don’t come naturally or need to be facilitated try finding their common interests. It’s a little easier to do with same-sex siblings, but it’s not impossible to do with brothers and sisters. There are always movies that all of my children like to watch - especially Disney. (Lucky for me my teenager is a Disney fanatic.)

Sometimes the sibling bond takes a little effort, but it’s worth it in the end. To this day my son likes having something in his hand because it comforts him, my second daughter is a girly girl who likes trucks and getting dirty just like her big sister and the baby who looks so much like Amber calls her name insistently.

Good luck with helping your children to build their sibling bond.