The short answer

Your toddler doesn't have to love the new baby right away, and trying to nudge them there can backfire. Jealousy, rejection, and even saying they wish the baby would go away are a normal response to a sudden, permission-less shift in their world. What helps is acknowledging those hard feelings instead of correcting them - the good feelings arrive on their own time, built across thousands of ordinary moments, not forced in the first few weeks.

When my second daughter was born, my eldest was 19 months old. In those early weeks, she said things to me that I know would have broken a lot of parents' hearts. She asked me repeatedly if we could throw the baby away. She wanted to give her to another family. She told me she hated her.

And honestly? I didn't take any of it personally. Not because I wasn't paying attention, but because I understood exactly what she was telling me underneath all of those words.

She wanted things to go back to normal. She wanted her world back. And I couldn't blame her for that at all.

If your toddler is struggling to warm to the new baby, I want you to hear this clearly: they don't have to love the baby right away. And not only is that completely normal, but trying to push them toward warmth before they're ready can actually make things harder.

The world just changed without their permission

There's an analogy I love to share with parents because it lands every single time. Imagine if your partner came home one day and introduced you to a new spouse. They told you, "I know you're going to love them! They're going to live here, use all your things, and I love them so much."

You'd be devastated. And that is more or less what we ask of our toddlers when we bring home a new baby.

Before the baby arrived, your toddler had you entirely. Your attention, your lap, your time. The baby didn't just join the family, in your toddler's eyes they took something precious away.

The jealousy, the rejection, the big ugly feelings are not a sign that something is wrong with your child or your family. They are a completely understandable response to a seismic shift in their world. Not only that, but during the toddler years, your toddler is figuring who they are as a separate being to you.

This is a complex process filled with opposing feelings and behaviours. Fierce independence and "I do it!" mixed with separation anxiety and clinginess.

While you know that your bond with your toddler is unbreakable and your love is unconditional, a toddler's fragile ego see's many innocent situations as a threat to their relationship with you. And what could be a bigger threat than a cute, squishy little baby - who does in fact take up a lot of your time and energy.

Forcing positive feelings creates the opposite

I know how tempting it is to try to nudge your toddler toward loving the baby. To point out how cute the baby is, to encourage a kiss or a cuddle, to ask "aren't you so lucky to have a little sister?"

It comes from love. But what it often does is tell your toddler that their real feelings are not welcome.

When we insist on good feelings between siblings, we tend to create more resentment, not less. Your toddler picks up on the message that their jealousy is something to be ashamed of, and shame doesn't dissolve feelings, it drives them underground where they fester. These oppressed feelings eventually do come out - in the form of tantrums, challenging behaviour and an incessant need to push your buttons.

I read something in the book Siblings Without Rivalry that has stayed with me: "Insisting upon good feelings between the children led to bad feelings. Acknowledging the bad feelings led to the good feelings." It sounds counterintuitive, but it is exactly what I have seen play out with my own children and in the families I work with.

What to say when your toddler says something awful

When my daughter told me she wanted to throw the baby away, I didn't correct her. I didn't tell her off or tell her that was an unkind thing to say.

I just said, "I know. It's so hard having a baby at home, isn't it?" And I let her feel it.

That is the move. When your toddler says the baby is annoying, when they say they don't want a sibling, when they say something that makes your stomach drop, try to hear the emotion behind the words rather than the words themselves.

They are not telling you they will never love their sibling. They are telling you they are struggling right now, and they need to know that is okay.

If they get frustrated when you're feeding the baby, you might say, "I know, the baby needs so much and it takes so long. It's hard waiting." If they push the baby away or refuse to look at them, just follow their lead and give them space.

It can be a huge relief for your toddler when they hear you say things like "gees, it really is annoying when the baby cries so much in the car!" or even just opening up the opportunity for a conversation about how things are going with the baby. "Is having a baby brother how you expected?"

The most powerful word you can use is "sometimes" - "sometimes it's so fun having a baby at home and sometimes its not", "sometimes you love being a brother and sometimes you don't; that's ok"

A healthy sibling relationship has conflict in it

Even now, with my girls a little older, there are evenings where one of them dissolves into tears and tells me she doesn't want to have a sister. And I hold her and say, "I know. I understand." Because sometimes that is genuinely how she feels, and she deserves to feel it without being talked out of it.

The goal was never for my daughters to love each other every moment of every day - no healthy relationship is devoid of conflict. The goal was for both of them to feel safe enough to be honest about how they feel, and to trust that our love for them doesn't depend on performing the right emotions on cue.

The bottom line

The sibling relationship your children will build together takes time. It is not made in the first weeks at home. It is built across thousands of ordinary moments, the fighting and the making up, the competing and the connecting.

You cannot rush it. But you can protect it by giving your toddler full permission to feel exactly what they feel right now. That is how the good feelings eventually, authentically, arrive.

For more help, browse my new baby and siblings guides, or book a 1:1 consult.