Sibling Transitions: Preparing Your Kid for a New Baby | Ep. 158

0:28Hey, mom friend. So if that sounds good to you, let's get into it. Each expert guest, including myself, comes with their own perspective and background. So please note that the content presented in this podcast is designed for general educational purposes only and is not a substitute for personalized professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Today, talking about sibling transitions, which has been a heavily requested topic. I feel like I've gotten a lot of mom meal, like requests about it. And I'll just respond and be like, actually, there's a whole episode coming out on it. So stay tuned.

1:04And then I also get a lot of questions in my DMs about sibling transitions. What are you doing? How do you prepare your kid for it? Blah, blah, blah. So I'm excited to give you a whole dang episode all about sibling transitions. Diving right into things without wasting much time because little boy is asleep on me right now. So I would love to get this recorded in and out, baby, before he wakes up. You don't need to hear me talking for 50 minutes on this subject. Let's just get into things. First, I want to say no matter how much prep work you do with your children, whether that be, you know, we have one kid or two or whatever, the transition is going to be difficult.

1:49Um, you can obviously make it easier for sure by preparing them in advance and such, but this is still a really big transition for them. Their whole world just changed. they're having to you know deal with uh splitting mom's attention dad's attention they can't just like climb over you all the time when you're holding baby you're always holding another child your arms aren't always ready to receive them like their whole world has just changed and if you kind of put that into perspective there you can have more grace for your kids when they're having a harder time. But I do just want to start this by saying that because I think a lot of people have this misconception that's like, if I prepare hard enough, if I do exactly the right things, it's going to be smooth sailing.

2:42And I really hate to say it won't be just because it's a huge transition for them as well. But I can say that it is so fun and like this is such a great transition and I love it. And watching my older children and older, right? Preschool and toddler. Okay. When I say older kids, it's just like in comparison to this little three week old at the time of this recording that I have in my arms right now, but watching them adore this new baby brother has been like one of my favorite parts of motherhood to date, to date, even more fun than when I introduced the second child to the first, just like getting to see your two kids love with getting to see these two humans that you love with everything in you, then love on this third human that you love with your whole heart.

3:45I just feel like my heart could burst 10 ,000 times a day. There's so much love floating around. It is so, so fun. But, okay, just wanted to kind of start there saying the expectations and just saying that, like, it is worth it and it's so fun. And another question that I get a lot that I'm just going to address here is when you have that first child, you are nervous to add that second. Because you're like, how in the world am I going to do this? how in the world is my heart going to handle this because what do you mean I'm going to love this other kid as much as I will love the first and yes everyone says that it's possible and it's just one of those things you're gonna have to trust you're gonna have to trust everyone that came before you and said like you will love this second kid as much as you love the first you don't understand that similar to you didn't understand how much you would love your baby before you had them the first time, you just got to live it.

4:42So just trust everyone who's saying like, yes, you will love this baby as much as you love the first. Trust them, even though you still can't comprehend that and you're not going to until that baby is birthed. So that's just kind of where I wanted to start the episode. But now I wanted to actually give you some tangible things into what I have done that has been really helpful. Again, this is not a blueprint and I haven't figured it all out. But I do think that this takes some effort, like some per take some effort. It takes some, it takes being like purposeful and you actually have to do it. You know, you're not going to just prepare the child or the two children that you have, whatever for the arrival of a sibling without actually doing it.

5:29You know, like if you want them to have an easier transition, you're going to have to do some of this. So this is just what I have done that I would love to share with you because this is a question that I get a lot. And now I'll be able to just give you the whole episode instead of paragraph after paragraph on Instagram DMs. First and foremost, I think it's really important to talk to the kids early about baby, about baby being in your tummy, about, you know, there being a baby in there. I just think it's important to like talk to them early about it so they can understand what's going on there.

6:04There's obviously only so much that they can understand, but opening that conversation early. I mean, as soon as you tell the, you know, as soon as you are start telling like family and friends, I think you can start telling the baby, even if that child is nine months, 10 months, you're having them back to back, they are more aware than you think. Like our kids way before they start speaking, they know what's going on and they can understand language. So start talking early about it. We talked about the baby all of, all of the time. And it was super fun to get to ask them, you know, do you think it's a boy or a girl?

6:45Cause we always wait until baby is born to find out the gender. Um, like, what do you want the baby to be named? And although we did not use their suggestion, the toddler isn't quite yet verbally there to give suggestions but the four-year-old is for sure um although we did not use them we still allowed that child to be like involved in the decision not the decision that's not it involved in just getting to daydream about names and feeling involved in the process of it or just being like mommy really likes this name and daddy really likes that name. Do you like those names? No. Like it's just really fun and really beautiful and a super easy way to get them excited in this.

7:30They don't have to be just like in this different world and you and your husband are the only ones that talk about baby or think about baby. Like bringing them in is really, really special. The next thing that we would, okay, I already said we talked, oh, we, we talked to baby a lot too. Like baby's in my tummy, you know, hi, baby, how did you sleep? And we talked a lot about, baby, you're going to love your big sister. Baby, you're going to love your big brother. You're going to have so much fun with them. Or, you know, they would, one of my kids would say something funny and I'd be like, baby, they are so funny.

8:07You are going to love them. Like getting the older kids really excited about not just like, oh, you are going to love having a baby brother or a baby sister. Instead of being like, no, baby brother or baby sister is going to be obsessed with you. Kind of making them the star of the show. You know, like they're going to be obsessed with you because you're so cool. Baby, you have no idea how lucky you are to have her as your big sister. That was something else that we did. and of course just got that helped our kids feel so much more excited for the baby they gave baby so many kisses on my belly which was just the sweetest thing I loved that so much and then we of course read a lot of different books about even the baby in my tummy I mean seriously if you just like go to Goodwill and peruse I there are a few books that we read or have read and And that's just because like those are the books that I found on Goodwill.

9:11I can't really say – or at Goodwill. I can't really say like I specifically bought this one book because it was so great and it walked them through everything. It was just like I found these five books in Goodwill and we reread them a thousand times because they're about the baby in my tummy and they're kid-friendly or they're about being a big brother or a big sister. So whatever you find, read them because that preparation is going to be really, really helpful. uh what else did we do yeah we also talked a lot about them being like the big brother and big sister so instead of you know just making the focus again like on baby it's not like you're going to be a big sister and a big brother and it's going to be so fun because you're going to get to show them what to do you're going to get to help um you know bring clean diapers over to mommy, you're going to get to help them learn how to walk and really, again, like make the older sibling feel like the star and that they're the one that's important and not just like baby, baby, baby, baby, but really you, you, you, you baby's going to frigging be obsessed with you and you get to show the ropes to baby.

10:32And then we also, oh, this was actually so fun. So I brought my kids to my prenatal appointments. This was not something that I intentionally did, but looking back on it, it was really helpful, to be honest. It was great. I didn't bring them to the ultrasound appointments. I made sure I had childcare for those days because those appointments are long And like to expect a toddler to just sit there while you're looking at this black and white image on the screen for, you know, 40 minutes, like no way, no way. So, but the normal prenatal appointments, they're pretty short and succinct. You don't get anything out.

11:10So I was able, I would put them both in the stroller and I would have toys in the stroller and off to the appointments we went. They were not smooth sailing. Lower your expectations if your kids are anything like mine. but they were involved. And the best part of the appointments would be when the midwife got the Doppler out. And the first time, again, this was like, not me, this is not intentional, but looking back on it, oh my gosh, it was so helpful. So the first time that I did this, the midwife had my, like invited my four-year-old to partake in this. So she allowed my four-year-old to squirt the ultrasound like Doppler jelly on my stomach.

11:51And then she and my four-year-old held the Doppler on my tummy to find the heartbeat and then listened to the baby. And then had my four-year-old like speak into the, I don't know what the word is. Imagine if you, you know, I mean, if you're listening to this, you've probably had a Doppler on your stomach. So, you know, like the microphone looking thing that they put on your belly to hear baby's heartbeat is hooked up to this like rectangle box. Um, kind of looks like a travel karaoke machine, if you will. And the box has a speaker, right? So it was just really sweet. Then the midwife like took the speaker and no, which way did my toddler, no, no, no, that's right.

12:38Okay. So it took like the rectangle part and gave that to my four-year-old and had my four-year-old speak to the baby. Oh my gosh, my heart exploded every single time, but especially that first time because I wasn't like, that, you know, I didn't, that wasn't me. And so my four-year-old was like, I love you, baby. We can't wait to meet you. Oh, the best, the best. So, you know, the Doppler was still on my stomach and my four-year-old's like speaking into the speaker, telling the baby that, oh, the best. So that was something that they got really, really excited for. And then every appointment after that, I would tell the midwife and I was like, you know, so my kids really love helping you with the Doppler.

13:24And I would kind of hint at like, that's what that's what we're going to do here. They're going to get to help you. And then even be like, and my we would love to talk to the baby. And then again, the midwife would kind of understand what was happening. but it was all really because that first midwife did it and then I was like that is such a great idea and then looking back I really do think that helped them being involved in that process or even like seeing the hospital I mean like this is where mommy and daddy are going to go away to and have the baby again it was just really helpful for them to visualize that and have a greater understanding because when kids have a greater understanding of something they're not so frustrated and upset they still are, of course, they are learning and growing, but not as much so.

14:11So that's kind of what we did in pregnancy. Then regarding the hospital stay, which we also get quite a few questions about, we choose not to bring our kids into the hospital. So we just welcome number three. So when we had number two, we also decided that we prefer not bringing them into the hospital. I think those videos that you see on Instagram or the pictures that you see of other people doing it, I think that is so cute. And I would love for my kids to come into the hospital to meet baby brother, baby sister. So if that works for you, do it. It doesn't really, it just makes me a little nervous knowing my kids temperaments, because I think one of them particularly, especially the younger that they are, because they're not able to really understand or you can't truly explain it to them.

15:09But from their perspective, they come in, mom is in this bed, maybe still hooked up to stuff, holding this little baby and everyone's making a fuss over this little baby and you can't really touch the baby because it's so little and it's so gentle. and then you're like supposed to come in and be obsessed with this baby, but really you just miss mom and dad. So you're full of emotions, but you can't even really sit on mom because she's in pain and she's recovering and you know, you don't want to touch the baby either. So then I think you might just feel more of like an outcast than actually included in the process.

15:48And then you're expected to leave. So it's like, hold up. Mom is in this room that doesn't really feel safe to me. She's on this weird bed. There's all these machines. There's all these noises that I don't like holding this thing. And then I'm supposed to go back after I only got to see her for 20 minutes. Truly, if I was a child, I mean, good thing I was a baby. I was the youngest of my family. I would be freaking out. Like not being able to really understand. But in your mind, you're like, wait, am I ever going to get to see mom again? Did I just get replaced by this baby? I feel like that is truly a lot for a child.

16:23Now, older kids, I think it would have been fine to have my four-year-old come, but it's not like we were only going to have one in and then be like, oh, sorry, little brother. You're not old enough to meet baby. So we just don't have them in. So I think depending on your kids' ages and their temperaments, bring them into the hospital. But we prefer not bringing in our kids to the hospital just so that they're more – it's not confusing to them. and by the when we get to be reunited at home like they're with us for good it's not like such a tease of i missed mom for a day and a half i'm gonna get to see her for 20 minutes and now i'm not gonna get to see her another day and a half what the heck that is an emotional roller coaster i think for a little brain and a little heart let me tell you what the mom club actually is because it is so much more than i can fit into one little ad it's where you get every episode full and uncut That's 15 to 30 extra minutes of interview every single week.

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18:00So come find your people at learningtomompodcast.com slash join. That's below in the show notes for you. I cannot wait to become real mom friends inside. Yeah, the first time that our kids meet the baby is at home. And when we were at the hospital, I just thought this was so sweet. When we were at the hospital, my mom did send me a text. This is the, I'll just read it to you. She said, good job preparing the kids for baby arrival. Big sister woke up first and I called out her name when she came out of her room. She came straight into the guest room, smiling and saying, mama's at the hospital getting the baby.

18:42They have been happy and talking about mama, daddy at the hospital waiting for the baby to come. I just think that is so sweet. So we did do a lot of prep for them. I mean, obviously, I just listed off all those things in the pregnancy that we walked through. But also leading up in like the final weeks, when you know when you're in your final weeks of pregnancy, and it's like, is it going to be tonight? Is it not? I really talked to them about what was going to happen. They knew. and they also knew like right natural birth so kind of every every night I prepped them like mommy and daddy might not be here in the morning if we are not here grandma is going to be in the guest room and mommy and daddy will be at the hospital having the baby and then we're going to come home and you'll get to meet the baby and blah blah blah and it was like repeated that was a constant conversation that we had probably from like 38 weeks on and then especially in the last days, like once I hit, you know, 39 and a half weeks, like with my four-year-old, especially, it was kind of part of bedtime routine.

19:48I was like, I really hope that I'm here in the morning. If I am not, I am at the hospital. I love you so much. Give me a big hug in case this is the last time. And that's also a temperament thing because she was so excited to meet baby. Like she would have shipped me off to that hospital, have the baby weeks earlier. She wanted the baby out of me. She was so excited. So I was able to be like, give me a big hug if this is the last time for a few days. Whereas perhaps with a different temperament of a child, that would have set them over the edge and been like, what do you mean you might not be here in the morning?

20:24So it does depend. Know your kid and change things accordingly. But that text really did make me happy that all that preparation paid off and all of that talk about mom and dad being in the hospital for a few days, having the baby paid off and just hearing how happy they were and like talking about it. Really love that. I love that. But so talking about what we did for the first time that they met the baby, we did the same with our oldest when she met baby brother. And we put the baby in the pack and play because we're downstairs. Because we have a pack and play in our living room. Baby's in the pack and play so my hands are able to like be open and hold them first.

21:15and my husband went to, so my mom came that first night. Like, you know, if you know our birth story, then you know that I, like it happened at the night. And I told my mom, you know, come over. She stayed the night. And then in the morning, she took them back to her house. So they were at the grandparents' house for those, what, three days that we were at the hospital. But that first night, you know, my mom stayed at our house. And so they come in from being at grandma and grandpa's house and I was freaking chopped liver. It was like, give me a hug. I have missed you so much. I'm like, Hey mom, how's it going?

21:57Where's the baby? Oh, the baby. We love you so much. Like literally they could care less about me. Um, that was fun. So the baby was in the pack and play. So I had my arms ready to receive them, but they went straight to the pack and play pretty much. Uh, they both asked to hold the baby, which was really sweet. And that was also when, so I like had them wash their hands and then I get up and I pick the baby out of the pack and play and I hand him first to the four-year-old. And in that moment, I told the four-year-old the baby's gender and the baby's name, which I was really nervous about because she was so hopeful that she would have a baby sister and it was a baby brother.

22:45And we were a little even nervous about that in the hospital. It was like, oh, I hope big sister's going to be okay that it was a boy. But truly she never mentioned anything. You know, this is your baby brother. And then I shared his name with her and I was kind of expecting her to be a little bit upset. And even now at three weeks postpartum, she has never once said anything about like, oh, I really wanted a girl. And even she spent all 40 weeks of pregnancy talking about how she wanted a baby sister and how she wanted a baby girl. And at one point, you know, I'm talking, I'm like mentally, I mentally prepared her.

23:26I guess this was another thing that I did to prepare her for baby. We don't know if it was a boy or a girl, but she wanted a girl so badly that I had to mentally prepare her for a boy. And I went, um, you know, what if it's a boy? Like it's up to God. It's not up to us if it's a boy or a girl. And literally she hadn't even turned four yet. She closes her eyes, folds her hands in prayer and says, dear God, please let baby be a girl. I was like, oh gosh, we are in trouble. We are in trouble if this baby is a boy. But truly, like a parent, handed that baby over. It was a boy and she did not care.

24:09She just has been attached to him ever since. So that was really sweet. And then the almost two-year-old, the little boy also has to hold him and he loves his little brother loves he also though loves all babies and so I wasn't surprised by that like he's been trying to hold and has held his little cousins for a long time and of course so the four-year-old now at three weeks I am able to give the baby to her like I'm sitting right next to her so I'm supervising I she's not to the point where she can just hold the baby on the couch and I can get up and like unload the dishwasher or something I'm still right there but I'm not holding him on any capacity whereas with the two-year-old he's whole like he and I are holding the baby together um but he has loved babies from day one so I'm not really surprised that he also loves this baby and it was funny we had a play date with my friend who had a baby a few weeks before me and then her son is the same age as my son we have the we had the same due date for them and we had boys and then she just had a girl like the same time that I welcomed baby number three and they came over and her little boy was not interested at all in any of the babies and my toddler was even trying to hold her baby so he just like truly loves babies and he has loved baby brother from day one as well which has been really really sweet um and yeah watching that encounter of them all meeting probably like changed my brain rewired it because there's just there was so much love going around so much oxytocin I don't think I've ever like been happier than watching my two kids just be absolutely enamored with another baby that my body made and birthed.

26:10And now that I just am, I'm in love, you know, it's just, it's just the best. I will say that coming home was so chaotic. It was so chaotic having, um, just the, the big kids around. Right. And they're trying to like rough house and you have baby and they're loud and they're screaming and they're pushing. And it was so chaotic. And we were very grateful that we did end up staying the whole time in the hospital so that I could just have a few more days to recover without someone body slamming into me. And yeah, or, you know, anything, right? Having to lift them or just dealing with all the noise.

26:54I'm really grateful that we stayed the whole time in the hospital. So the convenient option and the clean option are almost never the same thing, right? The easy thing is to one-click order it and have it show up in two days. And the clean thing usually means researching brands forever or driving across town to some specialty store and paying triple the price. And when you're in the thick of it with little kids, you don't have the bandwidth for that. So usually convenience wins, even if that means sacrificing clean, non-toxic ingredients for the convenient option. But I just think, why do we have to pick between convenience and non-toxic products?

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28:21But if you get in now, you're grandfathered in for free. So the link in the show notes gives you that free lifetime membership and a$10 gift card for signing up. So you could literally go make one swap for free with the$10 that they give you. Go to the show notes for that link. You can thank me later. But that was kind of our at-home experience of the first time in the meeting. since then. So now at three weeks, I would say up until three weeks, things were going great. And not that we hit like three weeks and immediately things went horribly. But I will say that I think the novelty of baby brother has worn off.

29:13And the reality of mom's attention is now split in three ways is really starting to sink into them. So we've been dealing with more tantrums and more acts of disobedience, which I just think all stems from attention because from a kid's perspective, even bad attention is good attention. So we've been dealing with that recently. I feel like, yeah, it took, it took three weeks to kind of sink in. Um, but whenever something that I do do is whenever they ask to hold the baby, we say yes. Like unless the baby is crying unconsolably, you know, just like having a really hard time or is nursing, they want to hold the baby.

29:59And I'm like, absolutely. And I just think that that helps a lot because they feel a part of it. And it's not like baby is this untouchable, cute little thing that only mom and dad get to hold and all of their attention is on baby. It's like, I know to them, it's like, no, I get to touch and hold the baby too. I'm a part of this too. And I do actually think that that helps. It makes me sad when I see people, even if you have a little kid, like, I mean, from, for other families, they would think they probably, they wouldn't let their almost two-year-old little boy you know hold the baby at least to the amount that we let him because he's just always asking like I was the first like 48 hours when they came home and met him I truly was like am I ever gonna get to hold the baby ever again or is big brother and big sister just gonna are they gonna hold him the whole time I don't know if I'm ever gonna get to hold my baby again good thing I stayed in the hospital those days soaking up those cuddles but the novelty again has kind of worn off but they still love holding him and I think it's a really easy beautiful awesome way to allow them to feel even I'm old enough I'm I'm responsible enough mom and dad trust me enough to hold brother I think that's really important something that I've been really trying to do to help with the attention thing is I've been trying to be really good about my phone time use because I want to be present and give my kids attention as much as I can.

31:35Because obviously we just went from splitting attention between two kids to splitting attention to three kids. And I don't want to have to then split my attention with three kids and my phone. So I've just been feeling like even more convicted about my phone use. So like my phone is put away. so I've been a really slow texter have not really gotten back to people my apologies and that is really because I'm just I'm trying not to be on my phone like I'm fighting against it and then something else that I'm doing right now is I'm getting a lot of one-on-one time with my four-year-old but in all honesty I'm having a hard time finding quality one-on-one time with my almost two-year-old because I'm able to get that one-on-one time with the four-year-old when I put the two-year-old down for nap time and then she does quiet time but for the first like 15-20 minutes of quiet time her and I will do you know we'll read a book or we'll do an activity or we will color or do play-doh whatever so that she gets that one-on-one time because she doesn't need a nap anymore it's like it's not that big of a deal for quiet time is cut short 30 minutes even.

32:51Whereas the two-year-old, almost two-year-old, like he needs to go to bed. He needs that nap. That's also kind of like my break and my sanity. So I need that break. So just in all honesty, I have been struggling with finding quality time with him too. Um, so I, I really need to work on that because I do think his not attitude, but he, I mean, he's having a hard time. He's not even two yet. Just recently having a hard time because again, it was very novel and new and really exciting up until about three weeks when reality hit in or sunk in. So I do think he will get a lot better if I can consistently find someone on one time with him.

33:35And that's just kind of where we are. That's the whole update. But I do want to end this episode with just kind of like a recap of some tips that I have found to be useful that I am going to share with you. I hope that they are helpful. The first thing I want to say just if you are in postpartum is if you need to put on the TV, put on the TV. As you know, especially if you're a longtime listener, like, we don't do screen time every day or even every other day. Like, screen time is pretty limited in our house for like, okay, tonight is going to be a family movie night. That's great. Maybe once a week I'll be like, you get two episodes of Bluey because I'm trying to get dinner on the table and I'm at like my wits end.