my partner has two kids from a previous marriage, SD11 and SS6. they are lovely kids but my stepson can be quite rough and excitable. i know this is normal and he would never intentionally injure our baby but i am nervous that when our baby comes along he will do things that might hurt the baby by mistake.

i'm afraid that if i get protective of the baby when SS6 is around, my partner will get defensive and think i am being mean. SS6 has a tendancy to be very spontaneous and suddenly yell, spit, jump around, etc, like all little boys. in a normal family i would feel more comfortable saying something, but in a stepfamily everyone seems to think the stepmother is evil and is out to kill the kids lol.

i just don't want my baby getting hurt.

how do you protect your baby from harm without making the older kids feel bad?

I was worried about the same thing in the begining.

OH has a boy (4) and we see him once a month, due to distance.
Last year he was very rough with my brothers toddler, and was caught stepping on the babys hands purposly, pushing baby over, and being quite mean, all through jelousy.
I was terrified that he would harm our LO.
However, since talking to him about his new brother/sister he has suprised everyone in being really enthusiastic and very very thoughtful.

He wanted to buy the baby a xmas prezzie, and when I had a tummy bug he kept creeping into my bedroom to ask if I was ok, he was so concerned.

The only advice I can give is wait it out a bit and see how the children react, you may be suprised. There are childrens books about that talk about babies coming into families too. So it may be worth a trip to a book shop.

Good luck!