Advice on managing bilingualism from birth

[FjordMor]

I'm British, pregnant with my first & living in Norway with my Norwegian partner. My Norwegian isn't up to much at all yet so we've decided we want to bring the baby up fully bilingual as it would be weird for me & my family at home not to be able to speak to him/her in English and feel it's vital for him/her to have a native understanding of English.

At the moment, the plan is not to do one parent/one language although we will to some extent when making a concerted effort - with reading bedtime stories etc. My partner has 2 girls who will be 11 & 13 when the baby arrives who will only speak Norwegian to their sibling and live with us 30% of the time. Also he/she will spend a lot of time with his/her Norwegian extended family. Partner & I speak solely English at home when the girls aren't with us and he is completely fluent.

We figured as our child will be living in Norway and what with family and neighbour children & tv, mostly exposed to Norwegian, that I would speak solely English to him/her except when in family situations and that we would send him/her to an English (International) playgroup, pre-school and school where he/she would also get proper tuition in Norwegian language but the bulk of the teaching is in English.

Can anyone comment from experience as to whether this is a balance that might work to achieve true bilingualism?

Thanks again natation, I've bookmarked that too to show DP (he's away at the moment). Good to know there are a few options.

Engelsmeisje - feeling your worry about the possible future reluctance to speak English. Have also more or less decided now that our LO will go to a Norwegian primary school for the same reasons as you (they don't start until about 6.5 though). Still would like the English speaking nursery school though. Norwegian relatives are now worrying she won't have enough Norwegian but I personally don't see that as possible. She will have play dates with her Norwegian speaking step-relatives (babies and toddlers) as well as English-speaking nursery school. I reassured said relatives that some totally British expat families move here with 8 year olds who speak no Norwegian, put them in Norwegian school, and they are fluent within months!

kalidasa - your partner's speaking and singing in French to the bump sounds so sweet! :) Wish I could get my DP doing that but he is still feeling a little inhibited communicating with the bump, despite the fact she wriggles with glee whenever she hears his voice...

'Growing up with 2 languages' sounds great - am looking for it now... :)

Fjordmor
Ive been there with the norwegian relatives worrying that the baby wont learn norwegian. Needless to say they are not worried now! (dd1 was a chatterbox and put their mind at rest) by the time dd2 and then ds came along no one was questioning it at all. Dd1 started schol last august at 5 years 8 months ( december birthday so yhe youngest in the year) and we have concentrated on reading english over the last year, we're going to start writing english this year now her writing is fully established in norwegian, in terms of letter formation etc. So o don't know how it will go yet but time will tell i guess.......