When did you tell your 3.5 year old

[Penguinfeetteal]

My DC is definitely realising something is up with mummy (exhaustion and being sick) and I wondered when people explained to their child why. We have a 10 weeks scan next week due to reoccurring miscarriage so I'm still hesitant until like 16 weeks but equally we are already further than we've been with any of my miscarriages. But my DH think we should tell DC soon. DC has very good understanding and knows babies grow in tummys etc. Just wondered when others told their child?

Sorry to hear of your previous losses. We told our nearly 4 year old at the time after the 12 week scan when we were sure everything was going fine, we also didn’t tell family until after then as we wanted to tell our daughter first. I just told my daughter I was tired and had a poorly tummy and that seemed to work as an explanation when it came to lack of energy and constant nausea.

I can completely understand why you’re wanting to wait, we have been so fortunate to have never experienced a loss so our decision was not taking anything like this into account but didn’t want to tell our child in case anything was wrong before the first scan.

No experience with this but I read a fellow poster advised waiting until 20 weeks minimum. The reason is young children have a different concept of time than adults, it goes slower for them. If you tell them now they will feel like they are waiting a lifetime!

Yes I probably would tell a 3 year old until much much later as they can’t understand soon as 6 months time, soon is in 5 mins for them.
Maybe 25+ weeks. That way bump more visible and you will start buying things or preparing spaces for baby so they can physically help

Told our 3.5 year old at 8 weeks. Our midwife told us to keep them as involved as possible. I also had a really tough first trimester and showed quite early.

Told our 3 year old at about 16wks also have a history of miscarriage so didn't want to rush to tell him. Bump was starting to show then and had started telling some people so felt the right time

All the best for your pregnancy x

We waited until the 20 week scan to be as sure as we could that everything was fine.
we had also found out the sex so that there wasn’t any risk of them getting their heart set on one of the other and being disappointed!

I told my kids after a scan showing a hb at 8weeks. I then had a miscarriage and telling them the baby died was extremely tough. I would wait as long as possible. In subsequent pregnancy it was around 16 weeks. But the later the better really as they have no concept of time and it will be a long wait.

I'm going to wait until after the 20 week scan to tell my 3 yr old.

Wait until you've had at least 1 scan. My DS (3) guessed when I was about 15 weeks I think! We'd been talking about it a lot. I wanted to wait until the worst of the sickness had passed so he didn't associate the baby with Mummy being ill...

I would tell later rather than sooner.

They can understand that Mummy feels poorly without having to identify it with a pregnancy.

Plus, once they know they will tell everybody because at that age they can't keep a secret. Are you ready for everybody to know at this point?

I waited until after my 20 week scan just in case of bad news then. He then proceeded to tell every person we met (even complete strangers) as he was so excited so I was glad I waited until I was happy for everyone to know

Thanks all lots of things to think about!