How to get yourself noticed as the 2nd child

Jeni Dibley-Rouse - 25 May 17

When you are the second child things are tough, you are sharing your parents with another equally needy (in different ways) sibling. Here is a 16 months old top tips on how to get noticed as the second child.

• Be a good sleeper at first, this will lure your parents into thinking they are totally winning at the parenting game. Anyway as you are the second child they won’t get up to every sniff and snuffle as they know you are fine, so just grab yourself a jellycat and snuggle up. Sleeping also gives your parents energy to do lots of fun things, parents are much more fun when they are not staring into space most of the day and shaking from the caffeine intake.

• Build up a bond with your sibling or siblings as this makes  your life a lot easier and your parents will notice you more as you are hanging out with the one that they focus all their attention on.
• Spend the first five months in your bouncy chair observing what your sibling does on a day-to-day basis, ensure you note their weaknesses. For example my parents clearly would love my brother to sit down and colour and create beautiful artwork worthy of framing and becoming part of the family home, so once you are fit enough start showing an interest in colouring, showing off you ability to sit down and hold a crayon and make a mark on the page.  Your parents will think you are genius and start muttering things like “look she might be a sit down and colour kind of child”
• Be more of a”cuddly” baby, snuggle up to your parents at any opportunity and hold on to your favourite toy, suck your thumb and look cute. This also means one parent will always take up this opportunity to sit down  for a rest, whilst the other one is dealing with the back chat from your brother.

• Try and keep it to one favourite parent at all times, this means someone is always going to hold you.

• Gain protection from your older sibling, this level of protection needs to be high. I have managed this by even getting away with hitting my brother in the face, being told off and then he will come over and say “It’s ok Grace it didn’t hurt, I don’t mind” . Basically this means you can get away with anything.

• Eat food to start with because I can guarantee your older sibling didn’t eat and your parents used to analyse every one of their meals. Your parents will think that they are winning with you and start feeding you the  “crap” food earlier, out with the rice cakes and in with the Quavers!

• Be grateful, and I mean really grateful, this needs to be timed perfectly to when your older sibling is going through a very ungrateful phase. For example on Christmas day with the small amount of presents you receive compared to your sibling, hug tightly any present for a long period of time and definitely whip out the surprised face a lot.

Once you’re in there it’s time to start asserting yourself just to warm your parents up to the terrible twos. Good luck!

Jeni Dibley-Rouse

I'm a mum of two children, Joe (5) and Grace (2), married to the husband and I quit my job of 15 years in post production TV (mainly working in advertising with a few documentaries) to run the family full time. I enjoy laughing through every phase of being a parent with the Joe and Grace.   I look on the brighter side of life 99% of the time. I'm aways on Instagram doing an insta story of our day to day life so if you fancy it come and follow us over there too @everythingisaphase

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