how did you/would you tell your 2yo old they were going to be a big sister/brother?

[olivo]

think we'll have to tell dd(2.7) that we are having a baby as I keep being asked about the 'poorly tummy' i've got - she knows that she ahs to stay away from my tummy when wriggling in bed etc! not sure how to break it to her. we have talked about her friends' little brothers and sisters, and i've asked her if she would help mummy if i ever had a baby - she will share her peppa pig and change its nappies apparently!! oh, and she'd 'like a girl best'
do i just keep drip feeding these sort of things or tell her outright that mummy has ababy in her tummy and in the summer, it'll come and live with us?
any tips welcomed!

I told DD just after she turned 3. Got the book, "There's a House Inside My Mummy" and it is a drip feed really.

The sooner you tell her, the sooner she will start sharing her sweets with the baby .

My DD thinks the baby will be sleeping in her bed though... few bumps to go. Also endless questions about when it will be 'summer'.

tell her by all means but don't expect her to understand... i'm having my baby boy this evening and last week DD (2.6) asked if he would be arriving on the bus

Blimey ellie. Shouldn't you be packing, or panicking or something?? Good luck!

I told DS fairly early on, and told him that there was a baby in my tummy. He wasn't quite 2 when I found out I was pregnant, and we (I think) started talking about it when my tummy got noticeably different. DS is still breastfed so I tell him frequently that he'll have to share with baby when baby comes. He has dealt with this by allocated one breast to baby and the other for him!

I think repetition has been key, as has been talking about "our baby" and how DS will be able to play with the help look after "our baby." Someone (maybe mumsnet) advised me not to talk about the "new baby" in case he reasons that new things are good and old things get thrown away. This seemed fairly reasonable to me.

He seems to have grasped that there is a baby in my tummy, and we have talked quite a bit about what will happen when the baby comes. We talk about the baby's bedroom, which we have decorated and DS likes to go in there and pretend to change the imaginary baby. He has also tried to dig the baby out of my tummy, and when told baby was kicking, wanted to kick him back!

I'm pretty sure we've talked about it nearly every day, but whether he really appreciates the enormity of it is another thing. He did go through a stage of wanting to be held like a baby, and wanted to be called a baby, but this seems to have passed. I have spent quite a bit of time calling him "mummy's baby" and generally trying to reassure him.

He is now 2.5 and we have a month to go...

I told my DS he was going to have a baby bro/sis when he was 19 months, i dont think he realy understood, but a few weeks before the baby arrived (he was just coming up to 2) I sat him down and told him straight to the point that the new baby would be here soon and asked if he would help me look after her etc.. he seemed quite happy with it and accepted my DD very quickly.

pmsl at 'arriving on the bus'

ellie - good luck! lol at you sounding so calm - i'd be all over the place if i was you at this stage!
good point about 'new' baby, must get used to that. I'll also have ,look on amazon for that book. we have miffy and the new baby and a dora becomes a big sister one, whci hwe do talk about and how dd would help if we had a baby in the house.
bizarrely enough, she has just come home from nursery and gone into her old bedroom and said - that cot is in the baby's room for the baby...-
maybe she has cottoned on more than i thought!

I remember my parents telling me about my brother - I was 2 years 9 months. In fact, it's probably my first memory .

I'm just doing the drip-feed thing with DS, who'll be 2 and a half when DD arrives.
I keep saying "she'll come out, and she'll be tiny and will have tahtahs (his name for breastfeeds)".
He just gives me a "don't wanna talk about it" kinda look, but i'm hoping some of it is sinking in.
Also, I've started taking him to the midwife with me, and he likes listening in to her heartbeat, although he doesn't really know what it is (i think).