I’m sure you’ve all seen it – the baby announcement in the form of an eviction notice that went viral. You know, the one of the toddler screaming in her crib with a piece of paper taped to it indicating she had to vacate the crib by such and such date, for the arrival of her baby sibling. I have to admit, I did laugh when I saw it. I thought it was cute and clever. Really, how did they time that picture perfectly to have her mid-scream?
But then I thought about it some more and it started to unsettle me. Especially since I have #2 on the way and our new baby will be getting Ian’s old room… and his crib and dresser… and many of his baby clothes and toys. I don’t want him to feel as if he’s being replaced or kicked out. He’s such a mama’s boy that I’m already a little nervous about how he will take to having to share me (and his stuff) with another little person. I sure hope he doesn’t feel as if we are staging an eviction!
I don’t really have any solutions, but here’s what we have done (and are still doing) to start paving the way for an easy transition to big brother status. Hopefully it works!
We started by telling him he was going to be a big brother and explaining that mommy is having a baby. My belly has been pretty prominent for a while, so he can visually see that something is different. Now and again he’ll point to my stomach and say “there’s a baby in there!” (which is absolutely adorable, by the way). Every once in a while we remind him that his baby sister is coming in a few months and he will get to be a big brother and mommy and daddy’s helper. We’ve also slowly started siphoning off his toys and removing the “baby” toys (such as rattles) and other toys he no longer uses to be “gifted” to baby sister. He hasn’t seemed to notice or care that some of his toys are no longer available (this must be why toy rotation works for so many people!). Of course we want them to share toys, but we also don’t want Ian to feel like he’s losing all his toys to his sister. This seemed like a fairly good method/compromise.
We’ve told him that he will be moving into a new room, a bigger room, and he will get to put a lot of his toys in there (currently, the majority of his toys are in the living room). We’ve even set up a toy organizer in his future new room and started relocating toys there. He knows they are there and he will periodically head upstairs to grab toys. He will even even play up there, if we go with him. We haven’t harped on the new room but have casually mentioned it during conversations when it naturally comes up. We’ve also told him his new room will be decorated with airplanes (which he loves), and he can help us pick things out for it. We’ve told him he’ll be getting a brand new big boy bed (he is in the crib, converted to toddler bed at the moment). His new bed is actually arriving next week, and I’m hoping to have his new room set up and ready for him before March so he has a few months to adjust to it and claim it as his own; without the threat of the new baby.
I’m also toying with the idea of buying him a book about having a new sibling. I’m just trying to decide which book to get. I don’t want to make a huge deal out of anything, but he loves books, and I think he’d really enjoy getting a book just for himself that is all about the upcoming role he’s going to be taking. If anyone has any book suggestions, I’d be more than happy to hear them!
I have no idea if all of this that we’re doing will make any difference, but I feel as if it really can’t hurt. And, if anything, it at least makes me feel better knowing that we’ve tried to prepare him for the changes coming and a little less like we’re just kicking him out.
we got a few books for my daughter to prepare for her baby brother. First one she seemed to like was called ” I’m a big sister” by Joanna Cole. I assume they have a big brother version. The other one was called “The new baby” by Mercer Mayer. This one was her absolute favorite for some reason…..she wanted to read it alll the time. My daughter was only 19 months when my son was born, so these are very short, simple books. But I really do think they helped her understand what was going on. We had no major issues with jealousy when my son was born. Hope this helps!
I was also going to mention the Mercer Mayer book 🙂 I still have my copy from when I was little, and kids seem to love Little Critter. Daniel Tiger recently became a big brother on his PBS show. The episodes seem like they would be helpful, as they cover topics such as mommy having less time to spend exclusively with Daniel and him having to share toys with his little sister. There are Daniel Tiger books based on the show episodes if you think that would be more helpful. I wish you all the best!