First off, you've only been married about a year. Your daughter needs time to adjust to the new situation. It's probably easier for your step daughter to accept you and call you Mom because her mother doesn't really exist in her life. But your daughter has a father and has known and seen him for the 4 years of her life. She's still young and has lots of time to bond and get to know your husband. She may never call him Dad but that doesn't mean she won't feel like he's one to her. My fiance' lived with his step dad from the age of 4 and has always felt closer to his step dad than his real father but he still calls this man by his first name. His mother actually asked them not to call their step dad "dad" because she felt it wasn't right to their real father. So they do often call the SD, Pap. It doesn't mean the boys love this man any less. Also...just try to explain why she has a different name. Tell her it's because kids have their daddy's names or something. Tell her you have a different name because you married your husband and you take their name when you do that. She may not really get it at first but it's part of life and she will learn and be fine. Try to make her realize she's still apart of the family no matter what last name she has. Lots of divorced kids have parents with different names than them and they just get used to it.

Your DD will have to learn that that's just how her life is. She goes to visit her Daddy and does stuff with him that you guys don't get to do. She has to learn that you aren't going to just sit at home and wait for her to come back. You will plan stuff and do things and go places like you would any other weekend. Maybe try to tell her how lucky she is because your SD doesn't even see her Mommy and your daughter is lucky because she has 2 daddy's.

With the first born thing...another thing she has to get used to. My fiance' was used to being the baby and then his step brother moved in when his mother abandoned him. They fought a lot and my fiance' was jelous but they got over it and today are close. It's another part of divorce and remarriage that your daughter has to learn and understand.

It also sounds like you and your husband need to get on the same page. You need to discuss discipline and other things. You can't expect him not to discipline your daughter if you do so with his. But he does need to respect your wishes with the spanking or at least you need to find a way to compromise. I think that's one of the things you guys should have discussed before marriage or soon after and you need to get this straightened out before the baby. Soon it won't be just "his daughter" and "my daughter" but it will also be "our child" that you have to deal with. Oh, and I think your husband needs to realize that your daughter is 4 and most kids that age are very trying. Also she's been through a lot of changes this past year and now has a new baby on the way..it's not going to be easy and she will act up and cause problems. Most kids do this when a new sibling comes anyway. They regress and act more like a baby and try to get more attention. The respect for your husband will come with time.

Also, your husband needs to accept that your ex is still a part of his daughter's life and be happy. Would he rather her be abandoned by her father? Maybe it's easier only having one parent in the situation and not having a child going between parents all the time but there will be less issues with your daughter later in life than your step daugher who was abandoned by her own mother. She's never really going to accept that or understand and will have issues for years because of this. I see it with my BIL. MIL may have raised him most of his life but he still feels people will leave him and they don't care for him and other things. He still has thousands of questions for his bio-Mom but doesn't want anything to do with her.

Again...I think the key issue here is time. You all need time to adjust. A year can seem long in some instances but it isn't with this one when you add all the new things to the mix. And a new baby always adds some stress and changes to one's life as it is but with all the other changes it's not going to be easy. Good luck.

Nadastimer has some good points. Especially about your DD fathers. He IS her father and has the right to be part of her life and she part of his. Yes, her calling your husband dad, would most likely upset him. Would you want your daughter to call any future wife he has mom? As long as dad is a part of her life, I think it best to have her call your DH by some other name. When my DH and I married, my DSD asked me if I she was to call me mom. I explained to her that she only had one mother, and I was not trying or wanting to replace her. No one can replace your mom or dad.
Stability means more than staying in one house. It also means knowing you are loved and can depend on the people you love. Also, her dad will always be her dad, your DH may or may not always be her stepdad. (I'm not being negative here, just realistic, no one knows what the future may bring)
Good luck and congratulations on the baby and wishing you the best.

Hi, I wanted to respond even though this seems a little late because I feel like I can relate to some of the issues from my personal experience even though I didn't have to deal with the step parent visitations.

Find a good family counselor and discuss these issues with a middle party. I have made my husband promiss me that if I die he will visit a counselor with the would-be families to try and resolve these issues before marriage.

I lived with my being spanked vs they could never be touched, and it sucked. It builds resentment on all parts. You guys need to deal with this and come to some sort of compromise. It doesn't do your kids any good at all to see the two of you out of unity. Not only will it be comfusing and a power tool for them to use against you, but it will cause them to disrespect you.

The step daughter is going to have many issues to deal with, but especially the fact that her mom doesn't "want" her. That is going to hurt big time regardless of how much she loves you. It will help her to work those feelings with a nuetral party...it will show up sooner or later. Also, she shouldn't be allowed to make the other daughter feel bad because she has to go to her Dad's and she gets to stay. She needs to be tought that is devisive and hurtful. She needs to learn better ways to vent, which may be what she is doing. She probably has a lot of anger even though she's so young. We all need to feel loved and secure regardless of our age and right now throwing it in the face of your daughter might make her feel more important.

Now, on top of everything you have this wonderful new baby coming into your lives that "belongs" to the two of you. More insecurity. This baby is going to be with you always, and share your names. Everyone needs to learn to accept their place in the family and realize they are all loved and accepted equally.

For me personally it was so hard to accept I wasn't blood. I wanted to be accepted as a sibling not a step. One day my couselor asked me "is it ok to be loved like a step-sister". Something so simple was a revelation for me...after all this is what I was huh? We all need to learn ways to accept the things we have no control over and sometimes we need a little help to do so. Even when we are grown up :-)

My two cents is get some outside help with someone you can all trust, it certainly can't hurt, and may do more good than you'll ever know. Besides, then you'll have an established relationship with someone you can all talk to if ever needed in the future. These things can be worked out, but it sounds like you need tools to do it. Good luck, and congradulations on the new baby!

Agree wholeheartedly with nadastimer. I think part of your daughter's unhappiness is that she is reflecting your thoughts and hears the arguments. Spanking: What will happen to your new baby? Will he/she be spanked? In a blended family there will always be differences in relationships. There is only one full blood child here, so all three will feel different from the others. Your husband needs to accept that this child has a father. He is not her father ... but .... he can be a most beloved additional family member that will love her and care for her and make a big impact on her life. You don't have to be the Dad to do this. The bonding only comes with time. I was 15 when my baby sister was born. From the minute she was born, she was my Angel. We did everything together. My Bf's and I would take her for ice cream, etc. At one point she started to call me Mom and I had to remind her "I'm not Mama" and we'd laugh and kid about it. She is now a beautiful woman with kids of her own and we are closer than our other sisters. We almost have a Mother-daughter relationship. Its not just the titles that matter ... its the love inside. I really do suspect that she is picking up on the problems that you and DH are having with this. I give her bio Dad lots of credit for being an upstanding Dad. It will serve her well in the longrun to have had the love and understanding of 2 wonderful men. Everyone still needs time to adjust. As the oldest in our family, each new child brought another wave of angst and trepidation until we became accustomed to this new squealy thing in our midst and we all became one together. Give it time and (let the hormones subside). Things will look and feel much different a year from now.

I wholeheartedly agree with all of the above and I have had a lot of the same issues as you have. My son is also no longer my oldest, has a different last name than the rest of us, is "bounced" between his father and I (my ex and I have him an equal amount of time- am I crazy about it? no, I share the same feelings that you do, that he shouldn't have to be "bounced around" like this, but, he seems to have adjusted very well to it, so, for now, since there are no real issues, I am just letting it ride for now) my hubby and I initially disagreed on the "spanking" issue and now we have a new baby.

My stepson calls me by my first name and my son calls my hubby by his first name. We have explained their roles in our family to them very carefully and what is expected out of them as a part of our family (i.e., everyone will be treated with kindness and respect or there are consequences). I don't want my son to call my hubby "Dad" because he has a Dad who loves him very much and takes good care of him. My ex husband and I are responsible for his upbringing, not my hubby. The same goes for my hubby and my stepson. I am not responsible for his upbringing. I play a role in his life, and that is as a caring adult who is concerned about his wellbeing, but I am not the primary decisionmaker in his life and I accept that.

I try to save special outings for when all of us are together, which isn't too difficult in our case because we have the boys on the same weekends. The times when I have my son but don't have my stepson are generally weekdays, so we don't really do anything other than dinner and maybe an outing to the park (right across the street) if its nice out. It does sometimes happen that there are holidays when we don't have all three and occasionally there is an event in which one or the other can't go, but, if my son were to rub that in my stepson's face or vice versa, the guilty party would get a lecture on treating his brother with respect. Also, i agree with someone else's suggestion that our kids have to learn that is just the way things work out sometimes- things can't always be exactly equal although we give it our best effort.

the spanking issue- tough one. maybe i was wrong in how i handled it, but I made it clear to my new hubby, before we got married almost a year ago, that I would not tolerate violence against any member of our household. my ex-husband and i split up because he decided to take his anger out on me physically one day. once was enough for me, i filed the papers one week later (and only waited that long because my attorney was on vacation). why is it "domestic violence" if a husband strikes his wife out of anger, but not if he strikes a child? i don't see a difference.

i believe, one, that a child that is hit only learns to resort to violence to solve problems and two, that there are other ways to correct children (like the ones you mentioned, which are the methods i myself use). i have never laid a finger on my son (he will be five in march) in anger and he is very well behaved and polite. i get complements on his behavior all the time. when he gets out of line (and I agree with someone else's posting that four year olds can be rambunctious, that is just part of being a normal four year old), i first point out that what he is doing that is not acceptable and then tell him what will happen if it continues(time out, loss of privileges, etc). if he does it again, then the promised consequences do happen. it works. Children want approval from adults. By the same token, I try to be generous with positive reinforcement. no offense to your husband, but i don't think your daughter will respect him anymore just because he has "spanking" privileges. you and your ex are the ones to decide the appropriate method of discipling your child, because, like it or not, your daughter already has a father. your husband has to accept that. my hubby had the same issues accepting that at first, but i was very firm with him about the fact that, yes, as a member of our household, my son had to respect him and obey him, but that any consequences of my son not doing so had to come from me as his mother and not him. by the same token, i don't interfere with the way my hubby is raising his own child.

luckily, my hubby has agreed not to spank any of the children in our household, out of respect for my feelings on the issue. i really wouldn't know what to do if he didn't and suspect our marriage wouldn't last long if he would not respect my feelings on this issue. as a victim of domestic violence, i feel very strongly (as you can probably tell and i am sorry to use your posting as a soapbox) that the reason we have such a problem with domestic violence in this country is that we teach our sons that hitting people is the way to make them do what you want and we teach our daughters that they should submit to being hit if they step out of line.

By now you probably have had your new little one, congratulations! I hope things are going well.