Toddler and newborn - rooms, nanny and holidays tips

[blondecat]

We have a wonderful DD who will be 2y and 8m when the new baby arrives this summer

I am worried how she will cope. Please tell me your tips

So far I am planning to
Move her to a different, bigger room with big girl furniture 3 months before the baby

Try potty training this spring too

Should I also remove the dummy? She only takes it for falling asleep and I don't want it to be too hard on her. Might it help her fall back to sleep if the baby wakes her?

The nanny wants to take summer holidays. Better just before or after the baby arrives?
We will have a summer nanny who worked with us last year but I doubt DD will remember her. She is v sporty and a lot of fun and can drive unlike our permanent

DH may take a day for the birth but if he takes any holiday it has to be before the baby, in July. Our families are overseas or rather we are and will only visit for a week max

If dh won't get paternity leave and you don't have family support, you might prefer the nanny to take holiday before the baby comes. Or if your family will be there for a week afterwards and will help out rather than just wanting baby cuddles and expecting you to make cups of tea then it may be better if she is around to help when the baby arrives. Depends a lot on how useful you think your family will be. Also think about the birth - who will look after dd if the nanny happens to be on holiday? I found that the hardest thing about planning for dd2's arrival - who would look after ds1 - as we don't have family nearby either. I have fab neighbours though who came round at 2am to babysit ds. I don't know your situation but you said dh "may" take a day off for the birth - I am married to a surgeon so I understand the difficulties that can be involved with taking time off work at short notice - but I can tell you that if he hadn't taken the day off when I gave birth then divorce papers would have been served!!

I have the same age gap between my 2. I needed a lot of help after DS2 was born - DS1 was old enough to be very conscious of getting less mummy time, and fairly full of beans and demanding, and I really struggled with breastfeeding DS2 in the early days, so often just needed someone to remove DS1 from the room while I tried to get to grips with it. I would suggest asking your nanny to take time off before your baby arrives, so that you can do some special things with your DD, then have her around afterwards both to entertain DD and to take the new baby out for walks while you do nice things with your DD.

Re rooms, we didn't have to move DS1 rooms, but did have to move him out of his cot bed so that we could use it for DS2. I think we did it about 2 months before DS2's arrival, it was very un-traumatic - big fuss made of new "big boy bed" etc, and DS1 chose a teddy for DS2's cot. I think he quite enjoyed the responsibility of it all.

Definitely, definitely try to potty train before your baby arrives. I didn't and I so regretted it. DS1 was clearly ready and desperate to potty train, I eventually went with this when he was around 2.10, but with a 2 month old it was a bit of a nightmare!

My DS1 was never woken by DS2 in the night. It's amazing what he managed to sleep through (initially DS2 was in with us and quite far from DS1, but went in to his own room right next to DS1 at around 7 months and still woke regularly in the night), but it just didn't seem to bother him.

Thank you both

This was my instinct too. Now lets see if I can make it work

Potty training will be interesting as she refused to sit on it sans nappy