Preparing a fiesty toddler for a new baby

Well, we saw the heartbeat today, so I'm feeling a little more confident

I'm of course not going to tell Alex yet, but I want to start thinking about ways to ease her into the idea of having a new baby in the house, and her new role as a big sister.

Any ideas/suggestions from the BTDT moms??

Re: Preparing a fiesty toddler for a new baby

Sarah was a lot younger, but this is what I did. I probably should mention that in spite of all this she was still stunned and for the first few days avoided me like the plague and would vomit if she saw me holding the baby.


We got a few books about being a big sister and would read them a lot.

I used to watch shows like A Baby Story so that she could hear babies crying.

I tried to get her to play with baby dolls more, helping feed them, etc.

I'd probably get Alex involved in picking out stuff for the baby's room, clothes, whatever to get her excited and feel a part of it.

HTH!

Re: Preparing a fiesty toddler for a new baby

We bought Julia a lot of big sister books, and some big sister dvd's. We also took her on a hospital tour with us so she could see the babies and also see where mommy would be staying for a few days, helped a lot.

Re: Preparing a fiesty toddler for a new baby

Not quite the same, but we wanted to prepare my 3-yr sister for DS's birth so I got her this:

Graco set

It has pretty much everything I got at my shower so it was a lot of fun for her and she still loves it.

We also got her a step stool that is alongside his changing table at my mom's (her old one) so she can help with that.

And lots of books to prepare her for the change.