Gimmee your ear!We've been having a problem since about 6 or 7 months with one of our daughters stealing toys from her sis and hoarding them. Yup, she's the one who's grabbing her sister's face in the picture. She just adores her sister, but that seems to translate into her wanting and taking anything her sis has. Fortunately the one who has things taken is really laid back and doesn't get worked up about it. But I was concerned about what to do and asked for peoples' advice. Below are some of the different answers I got. They certainly helped me and hope they might be useful to you.
As far as what happened in our case, things have calmed down a bit from the initial stage. Either that or we've gotten used to it. I just try to make sure that they both always have something to play with. As they've gotten older I spend more time telling the hoarder "stop" and trying to get her to understand that. Interestingly, the more laid back sister has started to crawl first, maybe to get away from her sticky fingered sib?
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We have the same issue with my boy/girl twins that are 15 months old but this started about the same time as yours.
Ann "steals" Jake’s toys. Jake is pretty laid back so when he was younger it didn't bother him too much, but I would still separate them by distance (with me in between) so that Jake could play with his toys without Ann butting in. Ann has a shorter attention span so she gets bored with toys more easily so Jake can snatch them back. I’ve been glad he’s more laid back because he tops her by at least 5lbs.
As time has passed, Jake has become more assertive in keeping Ann from grabbing his toys so I would think yours might be the same. I will warn you that as they go through terrible teething that if someone grabs a toy from the other and their teeth hurt--watch out! They will grab back that toy back with a bite if I’m not fast enough.
I’ve also been a little concerned because they play pretty rough with each other, more than I’ve seen singletons play, but I have credited that towards being with each other from the start including kicking each other in the face pre-birth.
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My girls did this at that age too. And it was also Alma, who couldn't crawl, who was stealing all the toys. Bea, who crawled sooner, was always having everything stolen. I just let them have at it and didn't worry too much. As soon as their coordination shifted, this behavior changed. (Now at one they are equal opportunity thieves). I would just continue to feed toys to both so that they always have something. I think they like to watch each other move and act, so I guess I always felt like at that age, the "victim" was somewhat entertained by watching her sister take and manipulate an object.
I could see going a different route, but that's my two cents!
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We had a very similar experience at a young age. I would separate them for periods of time. We had a pack-n-play in our playroom and would alternate putting a kid in there with a bunch of toys and it worked pretty well. I would sometimes put them at different ends of the room when they weren't crawling very much.
It got really tough around 10 months when my son (the toy taker) was crawling very well and my daughter wasn't. I was really worried, too, that she would become conditioned to have things taken from her and that my reaction might reinforce the "victim" role. There were times when I'd intervene a lot and get toys back for her, but also taught herself to immediately start playing with a toy she didn't want, he'd take it, and she'd take back the toy she was playing with. I was amazed that before 1 yr. she had figured out that strategy.
When they were starting to get verbal (and were totally mobile) around a year, we worked a lot with our daughter to put out her hand and say "no!" when he was approaching her to take a toy. We also encouraged her to get the toy back from him, while simultaneously telling our son that taking toys wasn't okay, that he needed to ask, or trader her for something else she wanted. When they were about 18 months it got really bad -- he would snatch and
run with the toy and leave his sister in tears. We continued hardcore with the strategies mentioned above and started using the counting method with our son -- he had the count of 3 to return the toy to her or I would take it away.
It was a lot of work, but I'm happy to say that now at 2.5 there is very little escalated toy taking and it has continued to get better since they were about 22 months. They tend to work it out themselves (while I force myself to hold back) and I rarely have to intervene. When I do, I find that when it happens it is usually b/c our son is tired, needs a diaper change, or is hungry. I also found that when our son was about to take a developmental leap the toy snatching and biting (he started biting her around 7 or 8 months and it would go on for a few days every 2-3 months) increased.
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I can't remember exactly at that age but, oh yea, mine are definitely interested JUST because sister has something. At a young age I probably would just separate them, use distraction and redirection.
I know by 16 months old they knew how to ask, "share?", "my turn" and "trade?". I also taught the one who was getting bullied to say, "enough!" (you could use "stop" or "NO!" too) They mostly play well but sometimes I have to separate them or distract them. I also end up buying two of the same thing a lot of the time now, depending on what it is.
I think it would be ok to tell A, "no, B is playing with that, have THIS instead". It will probably take a lot of repetition.
Another thing I read in a twin book which I found helpful.. is not to worry too much about one being "dominant" over the other. That can and will change over time. You can give them the tools to stick up for themselves, certainly, but, let them "own" their own relationship.
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We have been dealing with the same issue since our girls were about 7 months also. They are now a little over 2 and nothing has changed all that much. Astrid still wants whatever Billie is playing with. We still do the same thing we did then. We gently ask Astrid to give the toy back to Billie and explain that Astrid was playing with it first. Now we have a rule that you have to wait until the first person is done playing with the toy.
Like you, we were worried that the more submissive daughter would never fight back. As she has gotten older, she definitely fights back for items she wants to keep playing with. However, in general I would have to say that Billie does not seem to care as much about "stuff". She is really into people while Astrid is definitely more interested in and attached to material objects. Looking back, this may be why Billie never really fought back.
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