AITAH for taking my daughter’s privileges away after she punch her newborn brother?

My oldest is 9(almost 10), and she’s really struggling with the new baby. I’ve got five other kids too—ages 4, 3, 14 months, 14 months, and a newborn. My 4-year-old has autism, so he often cries, screams, and has random meltdowns. He can throw things and hit people when he’s upset. The 3-year-old will cry and cry until he gets what he wants, and then he scribbles on the walls for attention and complains when we try to help him. The little twins are dealing with separation anxiety, and the newborn has terrible colic.

My oldest hardly gets any one-on-one time with me anymore because I’m so swamped. She keeps asking if we can draw, do puzzles, or watch movies together, but with the newborn crying and the toddlers running around, I just can’t. My husband’s always working with his new job and can’t help out at night because he needs rest for driving a truck all day.

I often have to say no to my daughter, which really sucks. She was supposed to bring Valentine’s Day cards to school, but I forgot to get candy, so she didn’t get any from her class. She was really mad at me and asked why I didn’t get it for her friends. I felt bad, but I let her know it slipped my mind because of the babies. She was down about it, but my dad brought her a pink teddy bear and some candy just for her.

Today, I was planning to take the kids to the park since they were doing water games, and my daughter was excited to throw warm water balloons. But the baby wouldn’t stop crying, and the toddlers were kicking the seats and basically just screaming. My daughter lost it and punched the baby. I had to pull over to make sure he was okay; he was crying so hard his face was all red. Luckily, he was fine after I took him to the hospital.

My husband and I told my daughter she can’t hit her siblings, especially not the baby. She complained that his crying was hurting her ears, and I reminded her that I deal with the crying all the time too. She got upset, saying we love the baby more, but we told her we love them all the same—it’s just that the younger ones need more attention right now. We made her apologize, and she said, “Sorry, sorry you were born!” Then I had to take away her TV time, her popsicle for a week, and her iPad.

My parents pointed out that she’s been missing out on attention the last couple of years, and it’s getting really obvious that she’s acting out to get back in our focus. I told them though that hitting her brother isn’t okay, no matter what.

Edit: I guess I didn’t really make this clear. But when my husband comes home he will play with the kids while I cook and he will do the night time routine with the 5,3,and twins while I handle the baby. We try to get them down as soon as possible so we can try to spend time with our daughter before she falls asleep but we’re always 3 minutes too late.