Preparing big sisters for premature little sister

[blessedmamaforever]

Hello,
I've just had my third daughter born 6 weeks early and only weighing 5 pounds exactly and the birth was very sudden and happened over night when my 6 and 4 year old daughters where asleep, they went to bed with everything normal and woke up with family members looking after them at home and mum and dad at the hospital with a brand new baby. Both my older girls are quite sensitive and although we've had chats about how life is going to be with a new baby, DH and I still don't quite know how they will react (eldest daughter was only 23 months when her little sister was born and doesn't remember it).
Due to COVID, my older daughters have only seen pictures of their baby sister and baby girl will most likely be in the hospital for a while so as paranoid mama, I'm slightly stressing over their bond and when and how they are going to meet and be together.
Thank you in advance for any support, Chloe!

Hi Chloe, congratulations on your new baby!

My older kids were also 4 and 6 when dc3 was born prematurely and with no warning. Im not sure the 4yo had even understood much about the pregnancy as I was 25 weeks.

Both of them coped much better than I expected. They are also v sensitive kids. We showed them pictures as they couldn’t visit for the first month or so. We talked about baby being in the incubator as he had to come out of my womb (one of them called it a propagator!).

They drew pictures for the baby and we put them around the incubator and took photos.

They found it hard being away from me (it was school holidays) so we tried to give the day some structure.

They were very proud of the baby and enjoyed showing friends and family the pictures. If you have some prem baby milestone cards then they could help sort them and tick off the milestones before baby comes home.

The older one likes numbers so we told him all about oxygen levels and weight gain, and showed him all the machines.

We tried not to get too many expectations about the coming home date as it can change at the last minute. We had planned to decorate the house etc but didn’t manage it.

I’m sure your older kids will do really well and be great big sisters.

My DD was 4 when I hAd to go to hospital to have DTwins 5 weeks premature. They needed to stay in SCBU for 10 days (thought it might have been longer as they were very small). I was in for 3 days because of emergency c section.

There’s a biff chip and kipper book about A New Baby that has one that comes a month early and has to be in an incubator, that helped my DD understand. We also took lots of pictures to show her and kept everything very cheerful. Small children don’t have many preconceptions so they take the tone from you.