How to Prepare for the Second Baby

On Sun, 13 Dec 1998 09:10:32 EST, someone wrote:

I was up all night worrying about this crazy question. K is sure a sweetheart and I worry so much that a new baby is gonna really put a damper on all this. Will he be able to understand what's going on? Is there anyway I can prepare such a young baby for yet another baby who will be getting quite a bit of my attention? For those of you who had kids this close together, do you have any advice? I mean, what do you think I should do, if anything?

Your kids will be about the same age difference as my first two were. My oldest was very verbal, so I talked and talked and talked about the new baby, telling him about it, showing him pictures of when he was a baby, telling him that the new baby wouldn't be able to sit etc, just lie down. Also, I stressed that the new baby would be nursing too and couldn't eat anything else (Cees was still nursing)

We read books about babies and pointed out babies when we saw them somewhere and visited friends with new babies.

What I also did was try to get him used to waiting a few minutes before I answered his request. For example, if he wanted something to drink, I would say. 'OK, let me finish this letter (or whatever) and then I'll get you some'. I think this helped him to accept that he sometimes had to wait a few minutes before I could attend to him and that helped when I also had to take care of the new baby (no temper tantrums about wanting a drink, while I was in the middle of a poopy diaper of the new baby :-)

It will work out! The first year was crazy for us, with kids so close together, but after that it got easier.