Five Tips to Prepare Your Child For A New Sibling

Though I'm far from a parenting expert, I know so many people who are having their second child, just like we did in the fall, so I thought I'd share some tips about how we tried to prepare our three-year-old for the arrival of his little sister.

See the whole thing over on One Smiley Monkey here.

Follow Spokesmama here too:

Siblings (with video cuteness)

Two-month-old Brontë gets a goodnight kiss from her big brother.

Three months in, I'm really enjoying seeing the relationship grow between Linnaeus & Brontë. He runs to her when she cries to rock her little chair or give her a toy to play with. He kisses her on the forehead spontaneously & asks to hold "his baby" most days. She watches him & what he's doing, giving him big wide smiles when he's near.

When I thought about having a child, I really wanted to have two so that they could have this kind of relationship. I have nothing against only children & don't believe there's anything wrong with having only one. I wrote more about why I wanted my kids to have siblings in another post here.

So far, my hopes have come true for  Linnaeus & Brontë. Though he occasionally gets a little rowdy near her as I'm breastfeeding her on the couch, for example, he is generally quite gentle with her. When he calls her "my baby", that really gets me.

I know there will be some serious sibling rivalry to deal with at some point in the future, but for now, I'm just enjoying the present.

Follow Spokesmama here too:

Wordless Wednesday: Twinsies?

I think these two are going to look a lot alike... What do you think?

Follow Spokesmama here too:

Parenting two: Easier but Harder

Okay, despite starting with four hours of sleep (in three parts, no less) I had an awesome day last Wednesday. Got a few errands done & picked Sprout up from preschool on time, even wrote a blog post in the morning. Then I managed to bake three dozen muffins & got to go baby-free to a blogger meetup in the evening. There I won a door prize--a SnackBox--& came home with some fun swag, including a new book for Sprout: Which Way Back, put out by the Knowledge Network.

Someone asked me how it's all going with a second baby & I said, "It's easier, but it's harder." Having to divide my attention between two children can be so difficult sometimes. Some days I feel like it's impossible to get anything done & everything I try to accomplish ends up half finished or not even started. The fact that I've just finished this short blog post a week later gives you an idea of how the rest of the week went.

On the other hand, I'm a lot more confident & relaxed with wee Brontë because I've been through it all before with Linnaeus. Wednesday was one of those days where I felt like I can do this. I can survive & even do all right at this mother-of-two gig.

That plus being there for moments like this one make it all worth it:

Follow Spokesmama here too:

      

And so it begins...

Appropriate headgear, no?

It took three weeks or so to fully kick in, but Sprout's jealousy of his sister has finally crossed the threshold past crazy-making. Here are some examples of his acting out to get attention:

• unrolling the entire toilet paper roll & shredding half of it
• throwing every single item of baby clothing onto the floor from a box of hand-me-downs
• saying no to nearly everything
• climbing on the back of the couch & jumping off onto the seat
• throwing toys in the house
• head-butting us

I'm finding it difficult not to lose it & yell multiple times a day because I'm only getting five to six hours of sleep (usually in three or four parts). I just don't have time for cleaning up extra messes in between trying to feed, clothe & keep clean myself, him & his sister. The thing that makes me yell loudest is when he's potentially endangering his sister with the last three of the above list.

I know things will eventually get easier, as he comes to accept that he's no longer an only child, but what can I do now to deal with this? Any thoughts?

Follow Spokesmama here too:

The Second Time Around: Savouring the Newborn Days

Too cute for words.

Baby girl is 24 days old. I've had two children for 24 days now. I won't lie, keeping both of them fed, clean (okay, mostly clean) & safe is one of the most difficult challenges I've ever faced in my life. Add the breastfeeding craziness on top of that--breastfeed, bottle feed supplement, pump, track all of the above obsessively on my phone app, visit the doctor weekly, wash & sterilize all the gear daily--& I'm at my wits end.

But there are so many little moments of joy during each day that I try to savour. The surge I feel when I look at my wide-eyed little daughter when she's fully woken up from a nap. The annoyed, cat-like yowl she lets out after she coughs. Even her sneezes are cute. Feeling that warm beanbag weight on my chest when I hold her, curled up like a little tree frog. Stroking her forehead & looking at her soft hair.

What makes it all different on our second time around is that I really know what's to come. (In a general sense--of course she won't be exactly like her brother) Not like I knew from reading the infant development websites & books, but from experience. It's like rereading a favourite novel--no major surprises, but the anticipation is still there & I'll likely get something a bit different out of it.

I know she's going to start getting a chubby, round little face like her brother did, then probably slim out again. I can't wait to see how her hair looks when it grows in more, with what I think is a major cowlick on the front right side of her forehead. I think she's going to look a lot like me, but only time will tell. I'm looking forward to seeing what colour her eyes end up, as they shift over the next months from the dark grey-blue that they are now.

The positives are fun to look forward to, but I think the biggest difference this time around is with the negative aspects to having a newborn. Going through the challenges of no sleep & the low milk supply roller coaster was so difficult with Sprout because it felt like the worst would last forever. As an experienced mama, it's easier to deal with the bumps in the road because I know that 'this too shall pass'. I know that eventually, she'll sleep through the night when she's ready & that I'll survive the sleep deprivation somehow. I know that as hard as the breastfeeding is at the moment, it will get simpler as she grows stronger & gets better at it, meaning fewer bottles & eventually no more pumping.

For those of you with two or more children, how did you find it different with your second (& subsequent) child?

Follow Spokesmama here too:

Pink vs. Blue Hand-me-downs

In the last week it struck me: I've got three weeks to go (give or take, I know)... I need to get everything ready! We've been pretty relaxed about getting ready for this baby, as we have most of the stuff we need from last time, or people have loaned/given it to us again. One of the things I'm not so worried about is clothing, as we've got hand-me-downs coming from several little cousins, plus Sprout's old things.

Sunday I spent some time sorting through the smallest of Sprout's little clothes & I was struck with how gendered a lot of it seemed. I tried to find gender-neutral clothes when Sprout was little, but looking at the collection from the perspective of putting it on a girl, it all looks so boy now. There were quite a few white diaper shirts & onesies, plus the neutral beige & yellow sleepers, but the range of colours was mainly in the blues & browns, with a little green & red. Patterns are stripes or plaid or solid. Design motifs included various types of animals, but also sporting equipment, the occasional truck & one shirt with 'Lock up your daughters' on it. Hm.

I found myself questioning whether I would dress a daughter in this stuff. Will I constantly be correcting people's assumptions of her gender if I dress her in blue, black & green all the time? Should this matter?

For those of you with girls AND boys, did you dress your daughters in their brother's clothes or your sons in their older sister's duds? 

Follow Spokesmama here too: