Best time to tell 3 year old about new sibling?

[wishIwasonholiday10]

When did you tell your first child that they were going to have a sibling if first child was around 3 at the time? I know 3 year olds still can’t appreciate time very well so I guess later is better? After the 20 week scan or is even later better?

DS just over 2.5 and I had just had my 12 week scan. I told him there was a tiny baby in my tummy and that it had to grow before coming out.

Not sure why you would need to wait longer for an older child?

But I suppose the answer is....whenever you want to 😉

We told our son at 12 weeks and just said baby needed to grow for a really long time.

I would wait until they noticed bump.

Congratulations.

We waited to tell ours until we’d had NIPT results as I wouldn’t have wanted to have to explain to them something going wrong at 2 & 5.

We told our little boy who’s 3 after our 12 week scan purely because I’d been quite poorly with sickness and nausea which he’d seen and I was struggling to hide it. He’s taken to it so well and we explain baby needs to grow for a long time and said all the things like holidays and his birthday that will be happening before baby arrives. I don’t think he quite understands there will be another human in the house by the end of the year but every so often he asks how baby is or if he can feel baby move yet! He’s been fab really and we don’t talk to him loads about it but when he asks we answer. Just letting his little head process it.

Like others have said do what you feel best for you 🥰

We told my nearly 3yo after the 20 week scan rather than 12 weeks.

Reasons for waiting longer were:

• 2 previous miscarriages so didn't want to have to potentially tell DS that the baby had died
• At 20 weeks we could find out the sex, so able to give more concrete information to DS - that the baby will be a girl
• At 20 weeks can start to see a proper bump, which makes it again more concrete and clear to explain
• 6 months is a very long time for a toddler, but 20 weeks is easier to break down into manageable chunks of time to help him understand (after you birthday and daddy's birthday etc)

I told them at the point we were telling everyone else but first. So at the point at which they would hear us talking about the pregnancy with others. That was between 12 and 20 week scan. I had had a miscarriage before thier sibling (at 10 weeks) and I needed a bit of time to get used to the pregnancy myself before telling people.

My other advice would be to underplay the fun aspect of having a sibling. My DC 1 was bitterly disappointed at how little the baby did when they first arrived!

We told my almost 5 yo after the anomaly scan. I know people who have had the worst news at that scan so we wanted to wait until we knew all was ok. We found out the sex at the same time so we thought it would also be easier for her to process know it's going to be a sister or brother.
We didn't tell family until 16-17 weeks to avoid people putting their foot in it on front of my daughter but then again I was the same gestation when I told them I was expecting the first time too! I had two losses and come from a family where there have been quite a few losses so I've always wanted to be more settled in the belief that this pregnancy is likely to result in a baby before telling people especially those more emotionally invested. I've always told friends earlier than family and got support from them

I told my 3yo on her birthday at 12 weeks. She’d already started telling me I had a baby in my belly the week before as I showed quite early! I had 5 losses last year so wanted to wait a little while to tell her but we also want her to be careful and understand she can’t just leap on me like she sometimes used to!

We told ours after the 20 week scan, and we found a brilliant book, called 'there's a house inside my mummy' to read to him, which helped him understand a bit that there was a baby in my tummy and other was going to be his sibling.

We told DD when she was just about to turn 4, right after the 20wk scan. Mostly because then we were more confident that it would all be okay, but also because we could tell her it was a boy and we didn't have 20 weeks of "is it a brother or a sister?!"