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First time adopter with existing birth child. Advice welcomed...

6 replies

LuLuDoLoo · 10/04/2018 20:16

Hi everyone

We have a 6yr old birth child and are in the final stages of adopting a 14 month old. Introductions to start soon. Slightly freaking out, but have been told (repeatedly) that this is totally normal! :-)

Just looking for any advice around prepping my birth child in the run up to introductions, creating some nice welcoming things, starting nice rituals and generally helping us all get very excited for our new arrival. Also any ideas for things we can do to ease transition for both kids (and us!) when the new little one arrives.

What have you found really effective and were so pleased you did?
What did you regret not doing (or doing!)?
How did you find the first few weeks of settling in?
Anything I should brace myself for with my birth child?

Thanks in advance ... and hello. I'm new here :-)

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topcat2014 · 10/04/2018 20:54

You are ahead of us :). My DD is 11, and we are just about to start stage 2.

I am sure your 6 year old will take to it fine!

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hidinginthenightgarden · 10/04/2018 21:45

We brought home our 1 yr old when DS turned four. He was going to nursery 3 days a week which really helped everyone (us for some bonding time with DD and him with time away from the new baby).
For us having DS there was a blessing as DD found real comfort in having another child at home. She bonded with him before she did with us I think.
I have no regrets at all, it went very well over all. The only issue for DS was that he struggled to see us cuddling another child so we always made sure he was included. When DD was napping we made sure we spent that time with DS baking or playing games as much as possible and same when DD went to bed before him.

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FoldedAndUnfoldedAndUnfolding · 10/04/2018 21:59

Hi Lulu, I don't have any advice I'm afraid because I'm at exactly the same stage as you! My BD is turning 6yo in a few days, and today I was approved at matching panel to bring home a 9mo little sister for her! Intros to start around the end of the month.

I will be watching this thread very closely! Feel free to PM me if you're up for sharing experiences as the excitement kicks off?!

Thanks

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JustHappy3 · 11/04/2018 12:22

Hello. You've probably read my advice on here before - but think about how you are going to get homework/reading done. It was the one thing i'd not thought about - and it took me by surprise.
Ask your friends for their worst sibl8ng rivalry tales. Wish i'd done that before i was in bits when ds wanted to send dd back. Immensely cheering to find out most of my friends kids had done much worse to their littler birth siblings.
We've found that we simply have to schedule time for each of us to spend 1:1 with each child as well as family time and we completely let adult time. I wish we'd diaried in for 6 months hence to plan a date.

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LuLuDoLoo · 11/04/2018 19:24

Thank you so much. This is all very helpful. Keep it coming :-)

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JustHappy3 · 11/04/2018 19:37

Have you told your DC's school. Ours was fabulous. Let us collect DS 5/10 mins early so we didn't have to face the playground rush in first few weeks. Made him a "new big brother" hat on homecoming day. Etc