With only two weeks to go til baby bean is he to arrive, I can’t wait to see how 2 year old toddler W will react to his arrival! He’s given us plenty of sleepless nights over the last few weeks so seems to be preparing us for it all!
His behaviour’s been great lately but I’m fully expecting some jealousy-driven tantrums when baby is here! Here’s some things we’ve been doing and planning, to prepare him for baby’s arrival…
1- getting him a baby doll and pushchair
A few months ago I read a blog post from someone in the same situation (Lamb & Bear) who had bought their son a baby doll, I thought it was a great idea and so far, so good! He loved baby doll straight way and around the same time I picked up a bargainous pushchair to go with it, for a £1!
He’s good at caring for his baby doll (only flung him into the bin once!!) and pushing him around…. Hopefully when the real baby is here, his toy doll might join in with family baths/nappy changing etc… We’ll see. It’s certainly been handy at trying to explain what’s in mummy’s tummy…
2 – bonding time with bump
As soon as I started showing, I got in the habit of telling W that it was a baby. So quite often now he’ll ‘kiss baby’, say ‘hello baby’ or ask where baby is hiding (always trying to pull my top up to see him!) the best time is when I read his bedtime stories and he’s cwtched right in to me and Bean.
3 – teaching him through books
We bought Pirate pete’s big brother book, and ‘there’s a house inside my mummy’ they’ve been ok but not overly useful, maybe better for slightly older kids…
The content in the pirate Pete book is perfect but W just gets distracted by the button which makes a baby giggling sound! Whereas the content in the other is a bit confusing for him I think… Eg kitchen in mummy’s tummy etc. Either way they prompt us to interact with bump and talk about baby.
4 – giving him a present from baby
A few people have suggested buying him a present from baby. So far I’ve only bought him this gorgeous ‘big brother elephant’ but we might to think of something a bit bigger and/or more interactive as he’s not overly bothered with soft toys.
5 – asking him to help out
W likes keeping busy, and helping out with chores… So we plan to get him as involved as we can once baby’s here eg fetching nappies, helping to change him etc… We’ll see how it goes!
6 – keeping him in his usual routine
For the first month at least, W will still go to the childminder 4 days a week. Controversial maybe but we thought long and hard about it… Baby will (hopefully!) be on my boobs a lot during the day, and I will be shattered so I can imagine W getting very bored and frustrated! He’ll have more fun over at the childminder’s and once I know what kind of baby we have then I can start reducing the childcare time down to 1 or 2 days a week.
We’ll have to make sure that the 3 days he’s not with the childminder that he gets plenty of love and attention 😍
Of course I’ll keep you posted on how it actually goes….. Can you think of anything else we could do to prepare him? I’d love to hear your experiences….
Linking up with #KCACOLS
yummyblogger.com 
I can’t believe how quick that’s come around, so exciting! Some fab ideas, very similar to the list I wrote back when we were preparing indie. We kept her in nursery too, it made things easier for me, and she had much more fun haha xx
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This is a great lost, I’ve got another little one due in October and I’ve been thinking of how I can prepare my almost 3 year old for becoming a big brother. He will be starting 15 hours a week at play school in September so I will have 3 days a week with just the baby. I think it will work out heat for all of us. I love the baby doll idea! Hope everything goes well and W enjoys his new role as best bug brother xx #KCACOLS
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Thank you, I hope things go well for you too… I might be wrong but I suspect your age gap might make it a bit easier as he’ll understand a bit more? And so handy that he starts pre school! Good luck xx
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I was a bit rubbish at organising my gift from the baby to his big sister after going into labour a month early so ended up sending the husband out quick. But my sister in law got her little girl a kiddi zoom camera to take photos of her new sister and she loves it! I’m sure he will be fab though children adapt so quickly xx
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Thank you, I hope so!! Yeah we’ve left it a bit late too… A kiddi zoom camera sounds like an awesome idea, will look into that thanks! Xx
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It’s a good idea to keep him at the childminders – you’ll need the *rest* as it were! Good Luck 😀 Thanks for linking up with #KCACOLS and hope to see you next week!
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Thanks for that, I’m guessing some people will judge me for it but I’m sure it will be for the best, thanks for the support 🙂 xx
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I had so many sleepless nights worrying about this when I was pregnant with Astrid! But it’s been a breeze. Sometimes Iris gets cross if I ask her to wait a moment while I feed Astrid, but I think that’s impatience rather than jealousy. Other than that, there’s been no trouble at all. They adore each other and Astrid is constantly scanning the room for Iris, and she beams when she spots her. They adore each other, and it’s so cute it hurts!
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That’s so good to hear lovely, I really hope it works out like that for me too! As with so many parenting things, maybe the anticipation is worse than the reality!? Xx
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I think it probably is. And like everything in parenting, it passes before you know it. I really think Iris already can’t remember being an only child. xx
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For us we found that just lots and lots of talking about it helped x
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Ah that’s good to know, I will have to make sure I try and do the same! Xx
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Great ideas to get the little one prepared. I was actually thinking about writing a similar post recently about ways that we are getting our little one ready. Lots of similar things on your list that we’ve been doing! We were also thinking about getting the little lady to pick out a gift for the little one for her to bring to hospital and I was thinking about getting her to help me do things like pack the hospital bags so that she understands that baby will be coming soon! Not long now 🙂 Emily
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Thanks lovely – Ooh that’s a good idea about them getting involved with the hospital bags…. I STILL haven’t finished packing so he could come in handy 😉 good luck to us all! Xx
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I’ll admit I’m pretty nervous about what our toddler will be like whenever we have a second one. It has to be so hard for them to understand and deal with. Thanks for the list, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Hope it goes well. I’m sure he will be great with the baby. #KCACOLS
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Thank you…. Good luck to you too! Xx
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