"MINE!!"

rmrm · May 2013

my 27 month old is very sweet boy. he's been great with his little brother (who is 7 months) up until now. LO #2 is very grabby and starting to get mobile. LO #1 is starting to get mad, grabbing everything away from him, everything is "mine" (and i guess up until this point it has been) etc etc. I imagine this is normal, i'm just trying to figure out the best way to approach it. We do encourage sharing but i also understand how he would want to have some things of his own. He's also young to really understand sharing. Anyone with kids close in age like this have tips? I know it is only going to get worse as LO #2 starts crawling. thanks!

erbear · May 2013

Mine are close in age (4 and 2) and have had battles like this. I don't make them share (if one of them is playing with something, they get to play with it until they're finished) but I would address the rude tone of "MINE" (also, no toys belong to one or the other, except loveys) and I never let one grab from the other.

rnbeth477 · May 2013

I'm dealing with this exactly! DS1 doesn't get quite as worked up though. DS1 has 2 items that are exclusively his to play with, his teddy and a blanket. Everything else is fair game. So, if one is playing with something the other cannot take it away and vise versa. All their toys are shared.

rjeller32 · May 2013

For right now, I am separating toys. DD2 is not put near any of DD1's toys, and DD1 is told she can only play with DD2's toys if she asks me first. We have done pretty well to avoid too many freak outs about everything being hers. It was hard enough to explain that she shared a daddy, let alone toys.

When DD2 starts crawling, I plan to just tell DD1 if she doesn't want her little sister to invade her S*** she better make sure to put all of her toys away. I know eventually they are going to have to share, but right now this is working, so it's what I'm going with.

anakah · May 2013

My twins just turned 2 and are definitely going through the "mine" stage. All of their toys are shared except for a few items that have been designated for one or the other. It's usually something that one of them has shown an extreme interest in, is always playing with it etc. So if the other takes one of those items to play with and the one it belongs to gets upset, then i tell the other to give it back because it's their's. Stuff that we have two of the same item for, I put name tags on them and they can recognize their name and say mine. It's important for them to feel like they do have their own stuff and that not all of the stuff needs to be shared. Everything else is fair game and if they start to fight over it, it gets taken away and neither one gets to play with it for awhile.