What a wonderful moment between two sisters.  They are shown at the beginning of their relationship. The three year old is being gentle and caring as she feeds her new baby sister.  By her assuming the big sister role early on, she may keep to that protective, nurturing attitude for some time, maybe always.

• As big sister she will lead the way, and rightfully or not,  she will be the ideal by which the second child is measured: who crawled first, walked, talked, learned to read, etc. That may become burdensome for both if parents fail to give room for individual differences.
• Comparing one child with another is setting up an unhealthy competition that is certain to alter the children’s feelings for each other.  I urge parents to guard against doing this.  Accept that one will be stronger in some areas than the other, but don’t make it a ‘better than’ situation.  It is not how you want your children to feel toward you or their siblings.
• We ask a lot of the first child when we constantly ask him or her to give in to the wants of the younger, because of age.  It can set up feelings of resentment that can be carried for years.  I’m sure therapists have heard many stories of angst over childhoods in which men and women felt they had been treated differently, unfairly,  because of their birth order.
• What about when there are three? One is caught in the middle.    I wrote about that  in and article called The Middle Child, look for it under the category of  Birth Order.