Hi, I have an 8 year old SD and a 5.5 month old son. SD was so excited throughout my pregnancy - I took her shopping and she helped me choose clothes for the baby and new ones for herself. She helped us design their new bedroom. Son will be sleeping in our room for quite a while longer but eventually they will share a room. We had numerous talks with her about how the baby would need a lot of help and attention but her dad and myself love them both the same etc. We put so much effort into making sure she would be excited and any jealously would be as limited as possible. She used to love coming here, would constantly asked to stay more etc. So the agreement was she stays 1 night every weekend. Then she would ask for 2 night but BM wanted some time with her too so we then agreed she would come every other weekend but for 2 nights so BM had some weekends with her.

We went on holiday last summer, I was 27 weeks pregnant, and 2 days in I had a kidney stone whilst resulted in me being in complete kidney failure. We told her I was poorly and needed to be in hospital but she didn't know the details. Obviously the holiday ended early and as we were 2 hours away from home BM came and picked her up. 

6 weeks later, baby boy made a surprise appearance 7 weeks earlier than planned. He spent just over 2 weeks in the neonatal unit, but we made sure her dad still went home and had her on weekends as normal to keep the routine the same for her. She then began missing me and constantly asking for me, which was completely understandable but no way was I leaving my son's side. We explained to her he needed to be in hospital because he came early and that I needed to be there with him. She video called me numerous times instead. When we came finally came home she held her brother but took no real interest - again completely understandable, babies are boring to an 8 year old! Then my son became extremely poorly, he had bronchiolitis, sepsis, hypothermia and suffered a cardiac arrest. We were rushed to a childrens hospital further away from home. Me and my partner stayed with him so we didn't see her for 2 weeks but regularly video called her, phoned her etc. She knew he was poorly but didn't know any details/the severity. Since then he's been readmitted around 6 times, and we have had to be careful and not take him out in the cold weather as at first he struggled to maintain his temperature. We did inside activities with her, one of us would play in the garden on the trampoline with her, her dad would take her out to trampoline parks and on bike rides etc. We constantly tried to make it fun for her and give her and her dad some 1:1 time. She has always needed constant attention, she won't play on her own at all so obviously with a new baby around there have been moments where she has had to play alone for a short space of time. She has so many toys here and things she can do independently. SD then began randomly crying through the days/nights and saying "i miss mummy". We tried to talk to her and she said she thought BM was going to "die if she gets covid". We had many discussions about this with her, as did BM, but she no longer wanted to stay 2 nights so we reverted back to 1 night every weekend. She also told me she misses me and every time I'm holding my son she "wants to cuddle", so I always give her cuddles, sometimes whilst still holding my son, and sometimes I pass him to his dad. I thought the issue may be that she was missing me - we focussed so much on ensuring she had plenty of quality time with her dad that we never realised she would miss me too, so we regularly swap and each spend time with her. She has also been asking us both to lay in bed with her at night. We used to read to her every night but she no longer wants that and wants us to just lay with her. However my son is under 6 months so cannot be left alone to sleep yet, so only 1 of us can do this at a time. She does come into our room when our son goes to sleep and watch a film with us before going into her own room. She also seems to be jealous that our son sleeps in our room and she doesn't. We have explained to her why he needs to be in our room. The weather has since warmed up slightly and my son is much healthier so we have started going out more with her as a family. However, she broke down crying last weekend when her dad tried to pick her up and said she didn't want to come. She wouldn't tell him why but BM said she had told her the night before that we are always holding my son and that she doesn't get attention. We have had numerous talks with her about how he needs help with feeding, changing his nappies, playing with him, and just holding him when he's awake as he can't do anything for himself yet. We let her be as involved with his care as she wants to, but most of the time she ignores him and won't even acknowledge him or speak to him which breaks our hearts as his face lights up when she's there and he constantly smiles at her. We have tried reassuring her so much, spending 1:1 time with her. I also think she's at an age where she'd just rather stay at home all weekend. We are thinking of suggesting 3 weekends a month at our house for 1 night and 1 full weekend a month with her BM. We have no idea what else to do. One of us usually has the baby and the other constantly entertains and plays with her. It's absolutely exhausting and yet it's still not enough. I get the feeling that she wants both of us without him, which isn't possible and even if it was I'm not willing to do that because ultimately we are now a family of 4 and I don't want either child to think they are more important to us than the other. When explains to her about him needing attention and help I said that it won't always be like this, he will get more independent as he gets older. Her reply was "then I get all the attention again?" and I explained no you both share the attention equally. We aren't sure what else to do. We really don't want her to stop coming. If she doesn't want to come her BM just lets her stay home and we don't want to force her to come as she may end up resenting us. But my heart is breaking for my partner as I can see it's tearing him apart. And I also feel upset for my son that he already has so much love for his big sister and that's not being reciprocated. It's so difficult because my partner works all week so weekends are really the only time he gets quality time with both of his kids. He didn't know about his daughter until she was 2 weeks old and wasn't allowed much involvement with her. BM and her mother never allowed him to change her, feed her, take her anywhere or do anything until she was 3 years old and even then it was very controlled, so he missed out on so much and he's so happy to have these moment with our son, but this whole situation is affecting the quality time he has with both kids at the weekend. I understand it's been a big change for her, and there have been a lot of health scares and problems which she also may have picked up on more than we know. But I am so desperate to help her feel more comfortable/less jealous. Also to note - she is not good with talking about feelings. Other than that one conversation with her BM (we aren't even sure how true that actually was), she will not talk to us or her BM about anything. She shrugs, looks down or pretends to be preoccupied with something else so she clearly not comfortable talking about her feelings.

Is there anything we can do to help her? Or is this something that will get better with time?

I'm open to any suggestions, please help!