Intros during lockdown

[Fakinit03]

Has anyone done intros with an existing birth child during lockdown? We have been told we will need to isolate for 10 days prior to intros and for the duration of. However we have a 4yr old birth son who obviously cannot go to nursery if we are isolating. I know the plan is usually to at least start intros without other children present.
Our plan is to have my mam also isolate for the same time and then she can look after ds while we do intros. However this is proving a little more difficult as she does a lot of childcare/school runs for my sisters and they don't know how they will manage without her.
Has anyone done intros with their existing children present? How was it?
Also do you think matching panel may see this as a failing in our support system at the very first hurdle?

Thanks!

We did it. Our BC was 4 at the time too. He was at preschool and his school was actually closed and online only so it may be a bit different. I just took him out school for the week.

It wasn't even mentioned at panel. But we did talk through it with our social worker when planning the introductions. It helped that we had a brilliant FC who was fine with BC coming and going as needed and played with him a lot so we could spend time with LO.

We took one day at a time and tried to gauge how BC was doing through the day. We took his favourite toys and books and also snacks for him. On the shorter days he was fine. On the longer days we ended up taking two cars and split shifting it so to speak. So my OH would go early morning to see LO and I would follow mid morning with BC. Then we'd have a few hours all together then he'd come back with BC and I'd stay on with LO. Other days we'd do it the other way around. One day we did all day and evening meal together and then he took BC home whilst I stayed over and did the night shift with LO which was really valuable. It was about an hour away so this was doable for us. Our BC is a good traveller which helps.

Our SW was more keen to understand how we would support BC and what we had planned for incase he didn't cope. When we talked through this plan she seemed fine with it. I think the key with this as with anything in adoption is planning to be flexible.

I think it may have even helped with BCs understanding of the process because he saw where LO lived before and was part of the transition. He also made a good connection with the FC so when we talk about them now he knows who they are and will talk about them too which will help with conversations with LO in the future. (he's too young now).

@Crechendo
Thanks that's really helpful! How old was your lo at intros if you don't mind me asking? The fc lives about 30mins away so we could easily do a split shift approach if needed too.
When did you tell your 4yo about being matched? Did you wait until after panel?

We had an incredibly poor experience (not in lockdown) where social workers had an almost cruel disregard towards BC, and acted like they were an inconvenience. It was incredibly difficult. "We want you all here, but then for half an hour, BC needs to go away." "Go away where?" "Somewhere, use your support network!" "That's quite tricky, because the meeting is a hour away from our support network." "You said you had a good support network? Maybe if you don't, we won't proceed." "We do, but this isn't a drop everything emergency, is it? Can we plan differently?" Notes- The petulants are difficult, are they lying about support network? FC was also very rude to BC, again treating them as an inconvenience.

That was only part of the horror show.

I really hope that was one poor experience, and that the above poster's good experience is the norm.

I did intros for DD in April. Ironically I felt that the original plan I received for intros in March did not involve/consider DS (then 6) enough. In the end intros took place when the schools were shut and SS did not want to involve another household (my Mum would have normally have helped by looking after DS). It meant that DS was with me throughout intros. I was v worried before they began but DS coped v well and the foster carers were amazing. They had even bought DS a present and were so kind to us even when DS tried to start a foam party in their downstairs shower room!

I didn't actually get any proper 1:1 time with DD until DS returned to school for a few weeks at the end of June.

Overall it was a v intense and exhausting experience but it meant we felt like a family v quickly.

Our LO was 10 months old when we did intros.

We had been talking to our 4 year old about the adoption for about a year before. All he knew up till matching panel was that he would be a big brother and we would have a new baby join our family. (we knew it would be baby because of the age restrictions. We kept it gender neutral). He knew that the babies mummy and daddy couldn't look after them anymore. Between agreeing the match and actual panel we did ramp up how much we would talk about it. We've got a few books on being a big brother and adopting a baby and we would read that every few days and talk about it.

We managed to have two pre-meets and took our 4 year old to the second one. As far as he knew he was on a day out with mummy and daddys friends though. We didn't tell him why we were there.

Between agreeing to the match and panel we began saying "your little brother" when talking to LO. When we were matched at panel is when we said that we'd found a baby and that it was going to be 'x, the baby he met".