And then there were two - preparing your toddler for the arrival of a sibling

So the hospital bag is packed. The crib is awaiting. But what about your toddler? The often anxious expression and the sudden increase in tantrums signals something, but what´s wrong? ´mum what´s going on´? How you prepare your toddler for the arrival of a new baby can significantly reduce the fear, anxiety and general stress that may be felt by all family members. Here´s our story so far.

 

The first thing we have been sure to include is that we do not make any changes to our son´s routine in the weeks leading up to and the few weeks after his brother´s arrival. Any change in routine is difficult to adapt to but this will intensify dramatically with the arrival of a new family member. We began potty training over 10 weeks before the due date and changed the bedtime routine slightly to incorporate the new baby when he arrives. This includes my husband getting up in the night and having bath time in a slightly different way. Our boy adapted to these changes fine and now they will be much smoother when his brother arrives. I´m sure he may digress slightly with potty training and become a little more insecure at night but if we continue to be consistent, these changes should be minimal and he should adjust to his little brother much more calmly.

 

Preparing for feeding time! This was a major concern for me as I plan to breastfeed and as you probably know the first weeks can be slightly horrendous even without a demanding toddler at your side demanding attention. I remember my son took around 40 minutes to feed in the beginning and its not easy or convenient to move around whilst feeding your new baby. First I sat down and thought about our day. The baby will probably have around 8 feeds in 24hours three of which will be overnight (before bed, in the night, first thing in the morning) so I would only need to solve 5 feeds. If my husband is home from work in time for the evening feed this is reduced to thinking of 4 feeds. So not too bad. Getting the baby on a rough 3 hour schedule should leave us calmer. But that's still 4 lots of 40 minutes and you know how long 40 minutes is in the life of your toddler. I figure one feed can be with a movie or tv time as we watch some tv during the day so I can see how the day is going and use the tv time during the most erratic of the feeds. So that leaves 3! My son loves reading, so books will be piled high next to the sofa where I plan to feed. I have made some mystery bags for him to explore by my side. These include random objects beginning with the same letter. So our ´S´ bag contains a small saucepan, a star, a seal, a sun and some shells. This should keep him busy and also give him more language skills. We have a variety of finger puppets too which he loves to put on his fingers while we sing nursery rhymes. We have the famous ´Nemo´ fishing game which I should be able to play one handed. I will have to remember to have his water bottle and perhaps a snack handy too so that he has everything he needs for the duration of the feed. I think we´re ready to go?!

 

The next area of planning concerns where the baby will ´play´. We intend to put the baby on the floor from an early age to allow him to gain all the necessary and important motor skills. As he will move very little at the beginning we have got a blanket which he will lie on. Our son came with us to choose it and when we got home we put it on the floor and explained to him that the baby would be here and it was the baby´s space so he must not walk on the blanket. We all practiced walking around the blanket and it was a fun activity for the three of us. Our son was so excited about the blanket however, he just wanted to touch it and pick it up. So, I got him a blanket too! He now has his space too! We practiced walking around it and he is allowed to run over it and pick it up and choose where it goes and this has been a huge success so far. Lets see how we get on when there is a little baby on the other blanket!!!

 

We moved the moses basket into our room early and prepared our sons room for the arrival of his brother. This was probably one of the biggest changes and we did have a slightly adverse reaction from our boy. We have decided our second son will also sleep on a matress from an early age and sleep in his brothers room for nap time to start with in the hope they will be able to share a room when the time comes to move the baby out of our bedroom. We got a second matress, pillow and covers. We explained to our son that the baby would sleep there when it comes. He didn´t seem to mind the second matress and we refer to it as the baby´s bed and he never asks to sleep there or seemed to have any negative feelings towards it. The moses basket was a slightly different story! It had been in the spare room since our son had finished with it so he had seen it around but was never very interested. As D day got closer we prepared the basket. We washed the sheets and sorted the matress and gave the basket a light wash and told our son the baby would sleep there - so far so good. A few weeks ago I moved the furniture around in our bedroom, had a good spring clean and moved the moses basket up there too. I din´t think to talk too much about it but when it came time to have his bath our son went into our room and saw it. He looked for a moment then turned away. I picked him up to show him inside (all ready for baby) and explained the baby would sleep in mummy and daddy´s room when it was very tiny. He wouldn´t look at the basket and pushed away from me to go down. I put him down and he had his bath and got ready for bed but did seem a little quiet. When we put him to bed that night he cried a lot and woke several times in the night not just that night but for several nights. Clearly he was unhappy about the idea of the baby being close to us but over time he has adapted and (for now, baby still hasn´t arrived) seems fine with the basket in its current location! This is a great example of why preparation should start weeks in advance. I was just imagining if this reaction had happened the night we brought the baby home. Newborn crying + toddler crying = mummy sobbing!!! So glad we avoided this (though that's not to say we won´t have an adverse reaction the night we do bring baby home)!

 

The next big thing was arranging for someone to stay with our son while we are at the hospital. I have never spent a night away from my son and am extremely anxious about this. I will be in the hospital for two nights which is standard procedure here in Brazil so some hefty planning was needed! My husband will be present at the birth and for as much time as he possibly can. He is allowed to stay at the hospital with me but we think it may be too much for our son to spend more than the necessary nights without one of us as he is still very young. Really we were at a bit of a loss as to who we could ask but have a wonderful neighbour who will be stepping in to help us out. She has two older girls so has already been through it all before. She speaks English so he will have no problems and she sees him quite regularly so he won´t be confronted by a stranger if he wakes in the night or we have to dash off during the day. Also her girls are wonderful with him and he enjoys their company very much, completely forgetting about us when they are around. These factors leave us very calm when thinking about leaving him for the necessary time and know that he is in good hands.

 

So far these are the steps we´ve taken to reduce the potential stress of the baby´s arrival. For sure we will have some tense moments but if we keep in mind that it is temporary and that it is fear causing them we will be just fine. Our son just loves giving his ´baby´ or my tummy cuddles and asks several times a day (probably comfort from me more than the baby but its very sweet either way). Throughout the pregnancy we have spoken to him about the baby and he seems to love him just as much as we do. Not we anxiously await his arrival in the next few weeks and will let you know if our preparations were adequate! Any tips would be great so please leave us a comment :)
 

From nappy to pants - POTTY TRAINING

At 18 months we made the leap from nappies to underwear. Now a month in we are ready to tell you all about the process and how we dealt with the new situations which we found ourselves facing and how our little boy adapted to this new milestone.

 

The first question I will answer is ´Why so early?`

We have been asked this question several times this month. There are several reasons. Firstly, we want our son to be independent and thrive to help him reach his goals.Here, i´d also like to point out that we never force him to achieve something that is beyond his ability, yet aid his development by giving him opportunities and listening to his needs. Potty training fits here too. It is not just using the toilet but learning to dress and undress and wash his hands and the routine of hygiene that comes with using the bathroom. Sure these other skills can be taught without using the toilet but it is a great way to teach them all at once! Secondly, at whatever age you begin toilet training, it is a process. It rarely happens overnight. We have been helping him to develop his skill since he was able to sit up unaided. At 18 months we felt he was able to begin wearing underwear and taking more responsibility for his body as he was able to use the potty several times during the day. The third reason for starting all this so early comes from a Montessori concept. Why teach a child twice what they can learn once. If you continue to use nappies when a child is able to use the toilet at some point you will have to re-teach them to use the toilet. So we have skipped this re-teaching and been helping him from very early on.

 

And the moment of truth.... was it a disaster???



Well, i´ll be honest and say the first few hours of the first day I did think ´what have I got myself in for?´ But, after the first few accidents and working out his pattern, we have had a wonderfully successful month. We began taking him every 15 minutes until we saw a pattern emerge and saw he could go somewhere between 30 and 45 minutes between using the bathroom. We broke the day down into manageable chunks and got through each hour with few accidents. Each time he went we told him what he was doing and he watched the flush of the toilet then washed and dried his hands. It was very stress free and he was learning the vocabulary quickly and practicing saying them. We made a sticker chart for him so that he could see each time he succeeded and although it didn´t end up working as a reward chart (he is too young really to grasp this concept) it was a lovely distraction if he needed to sit a little longer to ´perform´. We made him dog and nemo stickers and he got very excited about them counting them together and he learnt how to stick them onto the paper (yet another skill).

 

Our sticker chart

Now, over a month into it all, he is able to ask us when he needs to go although he cannot hold once hes asked so we do still have the odd accident. He can go longer between needing to use the bathroom too usually over an hour and we´ve noticed that at least 50% of the time his nappy is dry after his nap of over 1.5 hours. Sometimes he tells us he needs to go when really he doesn´t so he is even trying to trick us and test what happens!

 

We are very happy we decided to go for it and hope we have inspired you too. But remember, if it´s not right for you, your child or your family then its not going to work out well.

Here are a few of our tips to a smooth transition.

 

 

• Try to plan a week of limited activities outside the house. If you start with pants it is not a good idea to put a nappy back on because you need to do the shopping. I rearranged life for 10 days to see how we got on and then we attempted our first trip out and yes, we had a couple of accidents!
• The first time you go out remember to take your child straight to the bathroom. We made this mistake the first time we took him out. As adults we take it for granted that there will be a bathroom around. Our poor little guy didn´t know that and as he had only been using the toilet at home he probably didn´t even know they existed outside his house!
• Have a potty to hand. We have ours in the back of the can so if he needs to go when we are out and about we always have one handy for him.
• Try to have a relaxed and calm approach to the idea of accidents both in your home and when out and about.
• Protect furniture. We have a thin plastic changing mat that we have put on the sofa for him to sit on - it is now his special seat!
• Be prepared for the accidents by having old towels or cloths and disinfectant spray ready. We also had a bucket of soapy water in the bathroom so we could put his dirty clothes in (just for the first week then it was so few we felt we didn´t need it anymore).
• Prepare your child a day or two beforehand. Talk about what will happen and show them the new underwear (allowing them to go shopping for the underwear is a perfect way to introduce them and allow them to make choices).