Bringing Home Baby - Week Six - Would You Like Whine With That?

Six weeks ago tomorrow I brought home baby boy number 3.  We had been trying to get pregnant for over a year and when we found out that we were pregnant we were ecstatic!  Our two boys were 3 and 4 at the time and even though they didn't completely understand what brining home a baby meant they were pretty excited themselves.  

Week 1 of baby at home went great.  DH was home from work all week.  We came home on New Years days, just two days after my scheduled C-Section to and empty house.  The following day Caleb came home from nana's house and Brayden stayed an extra day.  The boys were great with the baby.  They held him and hugged him and just all over loved having the baby in the house.  This is kind of what I expected it to be the first few days at least.  

Weeks 2 and 3 were pretty uneventful.  The older boys were back at school and they were still going to the sitters house.  DH went back to work and Wednesday - Friday it was just me and baby.  

Week 4 sitter was no more and it was just me and all 3 boys when DH was at work.  Schedule wise things were going OK.  We were and still are working on getting a schedule down, but anyone with a nursing newborn in the house knows that schedules are only as good as when baby wants to eat and sleep.

This is when everything stated to fall apart.  I have to start by saying the Brayden is historically bad at handling change.  And there had definitely been A LOT of changes in our house the last few weeks. The tantrums started.  They weren't the throw yourself on the floor kick and scream tantrums that we had seen in the "terrible two" stages.  This was the 5 year old deciding he wanted to be a baby again.  He started to whine and cry.  If he didn't get what he wanted he would cry.  Full blown crying, tears and everything.  Then the talking back started.  For the first week it was only at home, then it started at school too. 

Now when he gets upset he does one of two things.  He whines about it then "attacks" and hits or kicks who ever or what ever he is angry with (this usually only happens with his brother or 1 particular child at school) or he grabs his ears, cries and gets a sassy mouth. 

I'm sure that it will get better, but we are now going on 3 weeks of this behavior and I'm not sure that I can take it any more.  I don't know how else to try and reign it in.  Timeouts only work for about 30 minutes before the world falls apart on him again.  We started a rewards chart this week.  Thinking that maybe we need to be better at rewarding his good behavior and not acknowledging his bad behavior.  We have had mixed results.  Some days it works really well others it doesn't.

The 2nd part of this problem is that Caleb is an instigator and a boy's boy through and through.  He can not sit still for more than a minute, turns everything into a gun (as hard as I tried to keep them out of the house) and know exactly how to push his brothers buttons!  I feel like I am breaking up wresting matches every 5 minutes!  I've tried to just let them be, but it never fails that one of them ends up getting hurt.

I'm at my wits end.  And I'm not sure how much more I can take of this.  I just want my boys back! The sweet little boys that love their Mommy and love each other!  On a positive note Baby has been sleeping like a champ.  In addition to his little mini naps though out the day,  I'm still getting a good 3 hour nap in the afternoon and for the last week he has been sleeping from midnight until about 6:30/7:00!!!  It has been marvelous!!  I just hope that it sticks around.

So here is my question for all of you.  Have you brought home a new baby to a house with other children?  How did they react?  What did you do to help them adjust? 

This Momma needs some sanity back in her life!