sibling at birth--anything you wish you'd done before to prepare them?

[caedmyn]

DD will be not quite three when the baby comes and she wants to watch the birth. We've watched quite a few birth videos and discussed everything I can think of that could possibly happen that might concern her (blood, noises during labor, etc). I'm just wondering if there's anything I might be forgetting. For those who had siblings present at the birth, is there anything you wish you'd done or discussed beforehand to help prepare them?

[dogmom327]

I'm interested too. DS will be exactly 2 when this LO makes it's appearance. I'm kind of hoping DS will sleep through it but just in case...

[paintedbison]

My 2.5 year old witnessed her bother's waterbirth. I told her ahead of time that mommy would say "AHHHHH" when the baby came out. People got a kick out of asking her "what will your mommy say when she has the baby?" and then DD would scream bloody murder. I did scream as I was pushing... so I guess we prepared her well.

She thought the blood in the water was fireworks... it didn't scare her at all. She's totally stoked to see this baby come out too. She'll be 4.5 years when it is born. She can also enact a very realistic vaginal birth... including screaming and then saying "oh my baby, my baby". She's a clown. But I guess the birth did make a big impression on her.

[JamieCatheryn]

I'm curious too, my 1st will be barely 3 when this one comes. He's seen birth videos and thinks noises moms make are cool and funny. He talks about how babies cry. He knows babies get to have milk, hopefully he wont mind sharing or giving up the breast for the new baby. Maybe the cord and placenta will be something to introduce, might interest him. I wonder how he'll take to not having me able to pay attention to him, he'll have a friend of ours who he loves and will have her full attention.

[ellasmomma]

I'm very curious about this. My daughter is older than most of yours, shes 8.

I'm a childbirth educator and my daughter loves to go to classes with me, shes seen a lot of videos and heard how women are..

What I worry about is my daughter is really connected to me. She cries when I cry, she gets anxiety if I'm sick or not feeling well. I don't want her to worry about me so much that this traumatizes her.

I want her to be there so badly and she wants to be there just as bad. She tells me she knows that I will act differently and she wont worry, but how do I know that???

[MoonStarFalling]

I thought my very attached 5 yo son would get upset seeing me labor but I ended up being a little disappointed. lol He was not phased in the least. He woke up and started asking me to make him breakfast as I am clearly moaning like crazy through a contraction. He acted like it was just another normal day but he was very happy when his sister finally was born.

[ellasmomma]

Thats too cute, that he was just so ho-hum about it... I think I would also be disappointed, but relieved at the same time, you know?

[Limabean1975]

I really want my DS, who will be 3.5 when the baby is due, to be there...but I'm worried about freaking him out (I was a real screamer when he was born!), and I'm worried about me being too distracted by him - he is his whiniest around me, I am his go-to person in a big way!

Sorry, I'm not answering the OP question, just getting in the discussion!

[CawMama]

What about watching births on Youtube? Ds will be just over 3 next June....I've been showing him lots of pictures in books of babies inside their mamas. He looks at the babies that are further along and says "wow, how did that uterus grow so big?". It sort of freaks my parents and inlaws out when they ask him where the baby is and he says "in mommy's uterus".

[Limabean1975]

Originally Posted by Carrin

What about watching births on Youtube? Ds will be just over 3 next June....I've been showing him lots of pictures in books of babies inside their mamas. He looks at the babies that are further along and says "wow, how did that uterus grow so big?". It sort of freaks my parents and inlaws out when they ask him where the baby is and he says "in mommy's uterus".

I'm already doing that...but it's different when it's your own mommy, isn't it?

Hey, does anyone have any youtube birth video links with real screamers? While the peaceful ones are lovely, I want to find some more hardcore ones for my DS to see, in case I'm a screamer again.

[Belle]

My dd1 was 3years and 2 months when her sister was born. We had her watch some birth videos and explained what would happen during the birth. We told her that mommy would make lots of noise and that I would be working very hard to get the baby out. When I had some BH contractions I made some noises like when I was in labor so she would know what to expect. We also told her what she could do to help mommy when I was in labor. (Speak in quiet voices, help mommy get a drink of water, gently stroke mommy's hair)
We told her that if she wanted to she could leave with Grandma if it got to be too much for her.

During the actual birth after she woke up she played with Grandma in her room for about a half hour. When the midwives fetched her she sat on Grandma's lap and watched. I don't really remember what she did when I was in labor, but we've got pictures of her pointing at her sister crowning and explaining to Grandma what was happening. She was good about keeping her voice down. She wanted to check out the "Santa" after the placenta was born too.

[caedmyn]

Are older siblings typically quiet during the birth? DD is a huge chatterer and going through a "why?" stage and I can totally see her running through her whole list of questions while I'm trying to push the baby out. "Is that his head?" "Does he have hair?" "Is he wet?" "Does he have blood on his head?" "Does Mommy have an owie?" "Why is it taking so long?"

Everyone who's going to be at the birth has strict instructions to take DD OUT if she starts getting the "why"s or I know she will drive me absolutely mad. I have told DD that she needs to be quiet when I'm pushing the baby out, but she can't keep from making noise for more than 30 seconds normally so I'm not sure how well she'll do at that.

[alleybcat]

My son is 30 months and I had my homebirth 6 days ago.

I thought that we prepared him adequately. We watched videos, read books and talked about it alot.

He is very sensitive to my pain though and completely freaked when I was in labor and didn't even want to be near me. Luckily, we had people (my mom and sister) on hand to help him. They ended up going to a far away from and watching videos for like 3 hours. We called him in the minute the baby was born though and he was thrilled to be around the baby. He tried to get in the birth pool and stayed with us the rest of the day.

SO... I guess my advice is to try your best to prepare them, but have a good back up plan in place.

[Munki'sMom]

My girls are little over 5 and will be 4 end of feb. They are going to be at our upcoming birth. We watch videos and talk about it. I feel they are nice and prepared. I also have someone coming over to be there just for them in case they need it.

[IncompetentHousewife]

My daughter was 3.5 when I was preparing for the homebirth of our second child. I did three main things that helped:

1. I told her that I might act funny and make loud or even scary noises. I even demonstrated them ahead of time, "Arrgghh!" "Oooohh!!!" and we laughed. That made her more comfortable with the fact that I was moaning during the actual birth.
2. I told her that there would probably be blood, but that it wasn't "hurty" blood. I told her that the baby might be born with blood on it, or white stuff, and that the baby would look a little funny.
3. I enlisted extra help to focus only on my daughter during the birth. I knew that my midwife would be busy, and I wanted my husband to be 100% available to help me. I asked one of my sisters to come, one that I knew would totally respect my wishes for the birth and be super supportive of my daughter. I was really careful about who I chose. I feared that some people would try to take her out of the house or distract her too much when she wanted to be part of the birth.

I tracked down a copy of "Children at Birth" by Marjie and Jay Hathaway, the Bradley birth people, and that was helpful. It was a really old book, but my library was able to get a copy by inter-library loan. (Cool side note: I met the baby from the book, the Hathaway's son, at the LLLI conference in Chicago last summer!)

One thing I did not do was prepare myself for the fact that I ended up needing absolute peace and quiet during transition. I kicked everyone out except for my husband and midwife, and my poor little girl was really upset about it. She was downstairs crying, thinking she was missing something. My sisters were there supporting her, but it was still hard. I wish I had known the intensity of the moment might not have me wanting my daughter there every single minute (she couldn't help but jump around and be chatty at her age). If I had just told her ahead of time that there would be times she could come in and times when she couldn't, but that I wouldn't have her miss the actual birth, she would have been satisified as she has always been quite mature in her thinking.

I also had my daughter watch a video of a real birth. It was a long video showing a lot of the labor and she asked to watch it again and again! As if it were Elmo or something! I thought it was great for her to see the mom looking uncomfortable so she knew that was normal if I looked that way. She was able to see where the baby would come out and see how the mom acted.

My second baby's birth was an awesome experience, and I'm so thankful my older daughter was there to witness it. She told me, "Good job, Mama!" and she gave her little sister her first kiss! I am teary eyed thinking about it.