We told Ellie pretty much right away. We knew that we'd be talking about the pregnancy a lot and wanted to make sure that she was in the loop as much as possible.
As with any will-be-three-year-old, I'm sure that the reality of a new sibling will be a shock to her. But she seemed to get the idea right away.
I bought a book at Borders and she asked me to read it twice in a row, then looked through it herself. Later, she had Paul read it to her again.
The parts that seem to interest her most are:
- The drawings of baby in mommy's tummy (growing larger each frame!)
- Grandma and Grandpa coming to visit when the baby comes
- Helping Daddy give Baby a bath and put on its diaper
7 comments:
One of Meredith's favorite books during the Getting Ready for Harper days was "And After That" by Jeanne Ashbe. It's a lift-the-flap book and was really helpful when it came to teaching the concept of "sometimes baby's needs will come first." She really seemed to understand it.
I am sure that Ellie will be a wonderful big sister!
_I'm a Big Sister_ is also a good one -- lots of stuff about how the baby has lot of needs but here's all the the things I can help with, here's all the things that I can do that the baby can't, etc. Rachel really liked it!
Hah! That's so great! Hopefully she'll keep up the good attitude about it. I have 2 friends who recently gave birth to their second children and, in both cases, the reality of a new baby in the house was a difficult pill for this older kids to swallow. Just give Ellie ample opportunity to voice her opinion and listen to her well. She should adapt just fine.
Take care.
Amy :)
I remember the days of my pregnacy with Miss E...I always did love being pregnant. My youngest boy would ask me every day--is the baby coming out today?
It sounds like Ellie is very excited to be a big sister--how wonderful. We never did get any of those books about the new baby arriving, but we talked about it often.
What magical times lie ahead with reading and explaing and waiting for the birth of precious little one. I so loved that aspect of pregnancy with the last ones, because not only did I get to marval in the pregnancy and ancipation of little one, my other children got to particpate just like Ellie......
I can't wait to see the first pictures of Little Miss E and her new sibling. She truly is going to be an incredible big sister!!
Thank you, CCW, Amy, RNP, and Tara Marie!
Angela, Seasonalkat, and Tracie, thank you for the book suggestions!
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