Preparing 18 month old for arrival of new baby

[januarysnowdrop]

We're expecting the arrival of a younger sister for my 18 mo dd in the next few weeks. We've just been away with my in-laws for a couple of weeks over Christmas & in some ways her behaviour has become less independent over that time - she now prefers to be spoon-fed, which she hated before, and she has started crying to be carried up and down stairs which she used to love doing on her own. I'm sure this is partly because of over-indulgence due to there being lots of adults around over xmas, but I also wonder if she's twigged (in some way) that life is about to be turned upside down and is starting the behaviour regression that I keep reading about a bit early!

Anyway, my question is - what should I do about it? We've got into a couple of minor arguments about being carried around with me refusing to pick her up and her getting very upset (we always make up very successfully soon afterwards), but I don't really know whether it's worth making an issue of it, or just going with the flow, letting her have her own way & assuming she'll go back to being independent when she's ready. I had definitely planned to indulge her as far as possible with this sort of thing once her little sister was born as I know she'll be needing reassurance, but I wasn't expecting it to start so early!

Any thoughts?

Make sure that your DD s first to meet new baby (on her own, just with your DH/P), we didn't think beforehand and it was chaos.

Has she a baby doll/buggy? Then she can have a baby like Mommy.

Don't worry, she'll soon settle down and love her little sister, good luck

I don't think I would give in on the carrying, but otherwise go with the flow. It is very normal for behaviour to regress when new baby imminent or just born. You may even find she becomes very helpful once the baby is actually born. Lizzylou is right, she'll soon settle down.

i found getting a picture book to look through helped as they had a clue as to what would happen. also found it helpful not to push the relationship or advertise DS2 as a playmate. DS1 & 2 get on great now.

January - My DD1 was 20 months old when DD2 came along and we approached the first few weeks as quietly and calmly as we could. So introduced them very matter of fact and quietly, with a photo of DD1 already there in DD2's cot, asked visitors to concentrate on DD1, let DD1 regress a bit (bottles for milk, her baby words came back, looking at DD1's baby pictures, DD1 stole all DD2's dummy's until we gave up)and let DD1 do lots of things for and with DD2 like holding a bottle feed, putting a cover on baby. Really we just had to remember (and remind other people) that DD1 was still very young and needed to still be allowed to be a baby too sometimes. We put off potty training, moving to a big bed any other big changes that we could control too. The small gap in age is brilliant now though! So good luck and all that!

We let DS1 'find' the baby who was in a moses basket (he was 19 months)- good as I wasn't holding the baby. took him ages to notice the baby was so excited when he had and then thought it was fun for the next few times to see him!

Also if you can, video it... we did on our camera and it makes me cry everytime.

We also got him a present from the baby (a toy car) but he wouldn't play with it as it belonged to the baby.

Apparently you are meant to refer to them by name not 'baby' as this makes them a person to the sibling (hard when it tkaes ages to decide on a name!)

we had a book about the new baby... and read that a lot, I improvised it saying, and now DS1 is even more special because he is sucha good big brother to ds2 etc

and another thing, DS1 was really upset by ds2 crying, so we had to explain that it was because he couldn't talk, then he was ok.

good luck... I found it so hard at first but much easier now (ds2 is 1 and a half) and they have such fun together (when not scrapping!)