She's been lovely with him, mostly. But I travel for work a couple of times a month and I've noticed I'm leaning on her more with each trip. Watch him while I take a call, give him his evening banana, keep him busy while I cook. Last week she said 'he's not my baby' and walked off. She's right, technically. but some help is fair in a family? where do you draw the line 🤷
Ours are four years apart rather than thirteen. Still, what helped was making the asks specific and limited. 'Can you watch him for twenty minutes while I'm on this call' got a much better response than a general expectation that she would pitch in. And thanking her as if it were a favour, even when that felt a bit silly.
No baby at home here, so take this lightly 😄 My sister is the eldest of three and still jokes that she raised the youngest. The jokes have an edge to them, even now. I'd take the 'he's not my baby' line seriously.
We have a ten-year gap. What worked for us was separating household chores, which everyone does, from looking after her brother, which I asked for occasionally and never as the default. They get along well now, partly, I think, because she never felt she was the backup parent.
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