Preparing for a New Sibling

You’re rightly thrilled about adding to your family, but your children may have mixed feelings about it. After all, imagine how you’d feel if your husband came home and told you he so enjoyed being married that he was going to bring home another wife!

Preparing children for a new sibling doesn’t happen all at once. Parents should prepare siblings of different ages in different ways, according to what they can understand and how they’ll be affected. Julie Wanstrath, of TriHealth and the Childbirth Education Association, offers the following tips from classes she teaches for new siblings:

Tell them the family is having a baby, and emphasize that they’re going to be a big brother or big sister. There are excellent books available on the topic that are a great way to start a conversation.

Take children to doctor’s appointments with you so they can hear the heartbeat and learn more about the baby.

Talk to your children about what they were like when they were babies, and look at pictures of them as infants.

Tell them that you’ll need their help after the baby comes home. “Safety is a real important issue we discuss,” Wanstrath says. “Tell them to always sit down when they’re holding the baby and use two hands to support the neck. And things like you don’t want to give Legos and Barbie shoes to the baby and you might want to give them your Cheerios or raisins but that’s not a good idea.”

Try to present a realistic picture of life with a newborn, that they sleep a lot and won’t be able to play, crawl or talk for a while.

Have them help set up the baby’s room. If the baby’s arrival requires your child to move to a new room, do it early enough in your pregnancy that the child doesn’t feel she’s being displaced by the baby. Allow her to decide as many details as possible in her new room, such as paint color and bedding.

Encourage an open expression of feelings. “Tell them it’s OK to feel anxious or nervous about the baby coming,” Wanstrath says. “Ask them, who can you talk to about it?”

Once the baby is born:

Buy a small present for each child from their new sibling.

Allow children to put up signs or balloons at home, and serve birthday cake when everyone comes home from the hospital.

Create one-on-one time with each child, especially while the newborn is sleeping.

Don’t place blame on the baby when you’re not available. For instance, instead of saying, “I can’t help you because I’m changing the baby’s diaper,” try, “I’m going to be free in two minutes and then we can do a puzzle.”

Reassure your child that there’s plenty of love to go around!