What did you do with your toddler during your homebirth?

[ThermalMittens]

DC2 is due in Feb and I'm really hoping for a homebirth. We were originally thinking my DMum could pick up my toddler and take him to their house for a day or so, but he's become extra clingy over the past week or so and would probably find this too distressing.

My parents live just over an hour away, which means that DM might not be able to make it in time anyway, so I'm now wondering if he might stay at home with us instead. I'm having a doula, so DH would be on hand to look after DS if needed (assuming I don't labour at night).

It would be helpful to hear others' experiences. Obviously it would mean that if I had to transfer into hospital, DH wouldn't be able to come immediately as he would need to wait for DM to get here, but I think that would be fine...possibly naively!

My fella looked after mine whilst I had a doula. Worked out fine :)

My homebirth hasn't happened yet, but the plan is for my in-laws to take DS1 off to their house with them when I go into labour. They're an hour and a half away, though, so if it's really fast, DH will have to mind him while I go it alone with the midwives - we don't have any other family locally. Though if I had to transfer in for a serious emergency then I do have two neighbours who might be willing to step in and mind him until the in-laws got here. But I had a really long labour with DS1, so I'm not expecting this one to be super-speedy.

DD1 was asleep upstairs during arrival of DD2 and DD's 1 & 2 ditto for birth of DD3. Was working on the 'we are mammals and our natural instinct is to labour during nighttime/darkness' theory. All went swimmingly and even my moo'ing sounds didn't wake them. Hurrah (and phew!!). Best wishes - so exciting - wish I was about to do it all again

DS slept through my homebirth of DD1 but my DM slept over at ours, to be on call for DS, not to have a role in the birth itself. All went well, had planned the same for DC3 but ended up a high risk inpatient from 7 months pg

Best of luck for your homebirth.

Dc were around for early labour but i found it stressful with children in the house so Dp took them out to the park once midwife arrived. Then my friend met them and took dc out for tea while DP came home for the birth.

Then friend and dc came home about 45 mins after birth.

It was important to us that dc didn't feel pushed out so staying away was not an option - but I wish I'd planned better childcare. I was convinced I would labour and deliver at night. I didn't! We were lucky friend could help because dp nearly had to assist MW when I went from a few contractions to pushing without warning and second MW hadn't arrived. There's no way DP could have helped me while MW took care of the baby with small children around and if I'd had a bleed it would have been chaos and very dangerous.

DC1 was up and awake for the last 3 hours of my homebirth with DC2. She had breakfast through the more intense contractions, watched teletubbies for a while and then sat at the interesting end with her Dad for the delivery and shouted words of encouragement. I had 'push, Mummy, push!' and 'I can see my baby sister!' (when the head was crowning) yelled at me. She was just 2 and still remembers it very fondly. It was just lovely.

We planned to do it that way though (assuming she was awake; wouldn't have woken her up for it) and had my DM on standby for DC1 found things too traumatic or in case of transfer to hospital. My parents are about an hour away too.

Just an ordinary day at nursery for DD1. Went into labour just as she was dropped off and then daddy picked her up to meet her baby sister in the afternoon. DD2 was 8 days early and hadn't been organised enough to come up with a plan by then.

First HB DC1 was taken by my parents to a friends house where they all stayed overnight as contractions started at 7pm.

Second HB I hoped to repeat above scenario. I was pretty sure DCs would sleep through a night time birth but didn't like the thought of my mum and dad, who stayed with us again, being in the house. However DC3 started at 1am and was born at home at 5am.

DCs slept through and so did my parents - mostly. Tbh once it got going I couldn't care less that my parents were in the house! In fact it all worked out really well in the end having everyone around.

Could your Mum be on call to come over and stay upstairs/wherever is out of the way with DS whenever things kick off and stay at home with him if you need to transfer in?

Ds2 was born at 4am so ds1 was fast asleep.

Ds3 was born at 1pm just as the older two went for a lunchtime nap. Both times, as soon as they were in bed/asleep my contractions ramped up several gears.