How to help 7 year old ds adjust to new baby sister?

[coveredinsnot]

I'm due to give birth any day now. We have one ds who is 7 years old, he's been an only child this whole time. I'm wondering if anyone has any advice on how we can best help him to adjust to life with a baby in the house? He's such a thoughtful, sensitive boy and I know that while we've done lots of explaining, the actual experience is likely to be challenging for him.

Anyone else been through similar, with a similar ish age gap? All words of wisdom appreciated.

My only advice would be, keep remembering he is a thoughtful sensitive boy deep down. He may not be for a while with a new baby.
Try to keep some things the same, pipe down some quality time alone with him.
Don't be overprotective of the baby, rather teach him ways to handle the baby well and risk assessment.

That's lovely advice thank you! The bit I'm most concerned about is losing our bedtime routine together, where we always lie down together, have a little cuddle and listen to an audio book. Dh does it sometimes but I think generally is less cuddly and then doesn't hang around long after the audio book bit is done. I usually stay until he falls asleep. Yes rod for own back! And yes, probably definitely should have stopped this before baby was imminent. But haven't. Agh!

you can still so the bedtime routine OP,leave the baby witg DH whilst you do it! My DC1 was 8 when DC2 was born, and I can't lie she really struggled to adjust. She became very withdrawn and sad despite me trying to include her and make one to one time for us, and her attitude and behaviour went massively downhill. This was all due to her insecurities having been tje focus of my world for so long, she didn't know how she fit anymore. However, 6 weeks on with lots of care and attention she was back to her usual self and was wonderful with the baby

My best advice would be to definitely, definitely still make time for just him, and don't always prioritise the babys crying over him trying to chat to you etc.

I felt so horribly guilty on the first two weeks that I honestly felt we had made a terrible decision to have abother but everything turned a corner at 6 weeks and has been brilliant ever since

Ah thank you! Keeping the bedtime routine might just be a great idea. It's like a little anchor. Gosh I hope he's OK. I'm glad things improved for yours at 6 weeks. It's funny how guilty I'm pre-emptively feeling! Son has had PFB status for so long...

Be prepared to feel awful for a little while, but once he adjusts you'll all feel so much happier. Having said that, he might settle into it quicker than my DD did!

One other thing to remember is make sure relatives are briefed not to ignore him when visiting the baby and to still talk to him about him and not just ask what it's like to be a big brother all the time. I could see how sad this made DD when she tried to tell people about school or something she had done and they passed her over for the baby I put my foot down and got quite cross with everyone and they soon saw the light.
But as I say, DD is absolutely fine now and loves to play with her sister and likes to help take care of her etc

If you need to talk at any time, feel free to PM me

Thanks for the really helpful replies! Had DD yesterday, ds looked adorably happy when he met her!we will see how it goes and definitely use the advice from here

Ahhhhh, congratulations on the safe arrival of your DD I'm so glad it's going well so far. I'm here if you need it