Forum : Mums

Both myself and my sister had our first child (both girls) 3 months apart - we are a really close family but Im really worried thats about to change. My daughter is 21 months old very small, quiet and shy whereas my neice is 1 year quite large and very outgoing. For a few months we have noticed that my neice is getting more and more aggressive towards my daughter, shoving her over and hitting her. Obviously we are constantly telling her that this is naughty and making her apologise (she has never been smacked). Despite this bad behavior sometimes she cuddles her and is not aggressive to other children (she attends a daycare nursery and they have had no problems). BUT yestauday the aggression flaired up between them at my neices birthday party and was by far worse than anytime before this. The problem is we do not know how to deal with this and I feel the only fair thing to do for my daughters sake is to stop them seeing each other which is difficult as we have other big family occassions coming up and I dont want to cause a rift in the family.
Has anyone else encounted this and does anyone have any suggestions on how to stop it?????