Preparing to Add Another Family Member

After a couple of losses, we were very excited to be pregnant again. Our oldest daughter was now almost 5 years old and was finally going to have a little sibling! Since the age gap was going to be a bit bigger, we wanted to work on preparing her as much as we could in the pregnancy and postpartum period, so she could be as excited as we were to add another member to our family.

We decided to wait until a healthy ultrasound to tell our daughter this time. When we showed her the ultrasound picture, she was SO excited! I had even bought her a “big sister” shirt so that we could take a photo of her holding the ultrasound picture in that so we could announce the pregnancy to more people whenever we felt ready. We were around 8 weeks pregnant at this time, in early May.

My pregnancy was challenging. But it was so rewarding to see how excited our daughter was about adding a sibling to our family. We had a gender reveal party in July, after we had our 16 week optional gender ultrasound. I swore it was a boy, since my pregnancy was so significantly different than my first. I was a lot more nauseated and had a lot more challenges that I didn’t have during my first pregnancy. My daughter was Team Girl, as she really wanted a sister, but my husband and I were both thinking it was a boy, and were hoping that maybe it would be, so we would have one child of each gender.

But… When we popped the balloon, we saw PINK! It was a girl. My husband and I looked at each other very surprised, while my daughter jumped and screamed for joy, as she was wanting a baby sister. She was just SO thrilled and excited. Now we could really start preparing her to truly become a big sister to our newest little baby girl.

Couple and little girl looking at pink confetti that popped into the air. — Finding out that our second baby was going to be a girl was very exciting for everyone!

We did not take our older daughter to every single prenatal appointment and ultrasound. But when she did get to go, she loved seeing her baby sister on the ultrasound, and she especially loved hearing her little heartbeat. It was special to take her and anticipate our parenting journey with TWO girls. Since my daughter is now five years old, we were able to explain things to her more than if she were to be younger. Of course there were tons of questions.

I am not sure if there is a better way to go about preparing your younger children than taking them to prenatal appointments, letting them “see” the baby on ultrasound, feel the baby move in you belly, answering their questions, and talking to them about what will happen once the baby is born. But there are a few things that we (mostly my daughter) came up with, to help prepare for a baby sibling:

Pretend baby play

My older daughter loves playing with stuffed animals, especially birds. So in order for her to prepare for her baby sibling, she used her birds to “practice” being a sister. She pretended she was the mom and they were the babies: she put diapers on them, gave them bottles, put them to bed, and snuggled them.

preparing for a sibling by practicing with her babies — Pretend play with birds in the stroller

Books

There are many great books out there about preparing children to become a sibling. The ones we read the most were “Berenstain Bears New Baby”, “The new baby” from Usborne books, and “The New Baby” by Mr. Rogers. The local library is a great resource for finding some of these books if you do not personally own any.

Watching videos

It is hard for toddlers/preschoolers to understand the baby phase. They may think they will immediately have a little friend to play with, and may not realize that a baby just eats, makes dirty diapers, and sleeps in the very beginning. There were some funny Youtube videos my daughter ended up watching, that showed an older sibling explaining how she took care of her younger (9 month old) sister. That was really cute, and my daughter just wanted to watch it over and over again. I think it helped her understand some of what babies do and what she could do to help once the baby was born.

Conversations & Lists

Obviously, you can talk to your older child about what a baby does when he/she is born and what to expect. You can make lists of what the older child can help with once the baby is born, and have them add to the list / put the list somewhere for him/her to see, so they can really anticipate how they can help once the baby is born. It doesn’t have to be words; it can be pictures too, if your older child does not know how to write yet. My older daughter also made lists of things we had to do that day to get ready for baby and also enjoyed making shopping lists for when we went shopping for baby essentials.

Calendars

We started making monthly calendars for our 5 year old, as she does know days and months at this stage. She crosses off what day it is every day, and marks important events on the calendar. We marked baby’s due date, important holidays (baby’s due date was between Thanksgiving and Christmas), and preparing her for when family was coming to visit and meet the new baby. It really helped her see when things were happening, and she could count down to those dates. Even though our baby was born before Thanksgiving, 5 weeks before she was supposed to arrive, it still helped her a lot.

Little girl pointing to a December calendar. — Adding important dates on the calendar was a fun way to count down to family coming and holidays in a busy season.

Nesting

One really fun thing was when I started the nesting phase, and was preparing the furniture, clothes, toys etc. for our baby girl, I let my older daughter help me if she wanted to, or I would give her a specific task. It was really cute that she was helping me wipe down the baby bath, toys etc. Since the two girls will be sharing a room later, I also let her have input on where to put things for her baby sister. It was really fun to see my older child open boxes that had toys and clothes in it from when she was a baby, and then show her a picture of her playing with those things or wearing those outfits in the past. She absolutely loved the fact that baby sister now got to use the things she once used!

preparing for a sibling by helping organize toys — Organizing baby toys

preparing for a sibling by helping clean toys — Cleaning baby supplies together

Baby Shower

If you are hosting a baby shower or sprinkle, even if you think you may not need one with an additional child, it is really fun to let your older kids see what that is like (my 2nd baby shower this time was pretty small). My daughter kept asking questions of why it is called a “shower” – as of course a 5 year old brain cannot imagine a picture of a “shower” in her mind, other than the actual shower with water that she takes every day. It was really fun to let her partake in opening gifts for baby, and other blessings at the shower.

Little girl and pregnant woman standing in front of a front door with two blow up ducks next to them and a sign that says Welcome to Vivian's baby shower

Special Toys/ Outfits

It is really fun for an older child to pick out some special outfits or toys for baby. Some parents choose to have the older child pick out one “special gift” for their younger sibling so they can give this gift to the new baby once they are born. I had intended to do this before the baby was born, but because baby girl was born 5 weeks early, we ended up doing this after she was born.

Another recommendation I have is to get some special toys or items that your older child can play with if you are nursing/feeding the new baby. In the beginning, my older child always got bored while I was occupied with baby. Nearly 2 months in, she got more used to it, and because I kept showing her special toys or toys she had not seen in a while (read: I hid some toys in a closet for months and took them out after baby was born), she was fully entertained while I could not play with her because I was occupied with the new baby.

One final suggestion

When preparing to add a new baby, try not change routines too much. I noticed with it being Thanksgiving and Christmas, and my older child not having too much structure during this time, that she was really struggling and throwing more tantrums, because she did not have her “normal” routines going. Between family visits and holidays, this was a crazy time for us. If you do have family come visit, make sure you are preparing yourself and your child by setting really good boundaries, so that you do not feel pressure to do anything else besides bonding with baby and taking care of yourself and multiple children.

Man and girl holding a baby after preparing for baby sister — Meeting baby sister and getting to hold her for the first time was very special.

Of course there were phases where it was hard for our 5 year old to know that she was not going to be the only child anymore, and that there were going to be things she was going to have to share. We had lots of comments like, “My birds won’t be lined up perfectly anymore, because sister will mess it up,” and, “I don’t want to share my toys.” But now that sister is here, she loves to hold, cuddle, help entertain, and feed her.

It is truly helpful to have an older sibling help occupy/entertain the baby for a moment when you are trying to put in that one load of laundry or empty a dishwasher.

I am certainly not perfect or complete now that I have two kids. One day I feel strong and think, “I’ve totally got this,” while the next day when the baby is fussing all night and my preschooler is very needy at the same time, I think to myself, “this two kids thing is too hard.”

I do hope these suggestions help you as you may be preparing to add another family member. Just remember that you are not alone in your struggles while parenting multiple kids, and that it is OK to ask for help, or put the baby in a safe place, let your preschooler watch TV, and take a break.