So I was discussing baby's upcoming birth with DS...

[smeep]

DS is five and baby will be here in February/March. I've been preparing him for the birth by reading books, showing him homebirth videos, etc. Today at my midwife appointment she gave us a DVD/book combo about siblings at a homebirth. After we watched it I asked him if he thought it would be a little scary or okay and he said okay (which I expected; none of the "scary" stuff seems to phase him). And then he added, "Because it's normal, right?" He is wise beyond his years! 

[MegBoz]

:)

[Aliy]

that is great

[lunarlady]

Hopefully he will hold on to that opinion for life!

[labortrials]

My 6 yr old doesn't think there's anything abnormal about having a baby at home.  She doesn't understand why women go to the hospital to have babies - are the sick?  Are their babies dying?  The follow up questions have been quite interesting.  And, well, she knows that last time I went to the hospital, I had two babies cut out of me.

[maotmsmi]

*

Edited by maotmsmi - 5/21/11 at 11:24am

[smeep]

Originally Posted by labortrials 

My 6 yr old doesn't think there's anything abnormal about having a baby at home.  She doesn't understand why women go to the hospital to have babies - are the sick?  Are their babies dying?  

That's exactly how I grew up! My mom had all of us at home and I was always told that healthy moms and babies birth at home and only sick ones go to the hospital. Then I started finding out my friends were all born at hospitals and got confused as to why ALL my friends were sick. Then I explained that's how it should be, not how it actually was. It was totally normal to me, though. I grew up looking through the photo album which had the pictures from our births. Apparently it was SO normal to my younger sister and I that my mother had to hide the photo album because whenever people would come over the first thing we would do is grab the album and start showing it to people. And, while that's normal for our family, I can only imagine what our guests thought. 

Originally Posted by MommyKrista 

Aww, I love it! When the question of how his brother and him were born came up, I was very honest with my 4yo and briefly described how him and his 2yo brother were born via c-section but that we hope to have this baby at home. He then told me that we'd go to the hospital if the baby was sick but we'd have baby at home if s/he was healthy, right? Even though my children were born via c-section, I'm very proud of them that they recognize that to be unusual  and that it should be reserved for emergencies and that homebirth is preferred for a normal, healthy pregnancy. He's also excitedly told several people, including my mom, about how this baby will be born at home (he, he!).

What book/DVD did your midwife give you for your DS? I'm interested in anything geared towards getting my boys ready for this baby's birth!

Having been born via cesarean I think it is even MORE important for your children to be able to understand and differentiate normal birth from abnormal birth! I have noticed that people who were born by cesarean themselves seem to be more, "Doc said to do a cesarean, no biggie, it's all fine either way" than those not born by cesarean. At least that has been my observation. 

This is the first book that she gave us a couple months ago:

http://www.amazon.com/Mom-Dad-Are-Having-Baby/dp/0937604038

And this is the book/DVD combo that we're borrowing right now:
http://www.amazon.com/Watched-Brother-Being-Born-Including/dp/1412072778

The first one is pretty good about discussing the things that tend to be more "scary" to kids (placenta, tools, blood, etc.) but the second one is more about the two kids and their involvement in their baby brother's birth. Both are pretty good.

I've also shown him videos on YouTube. This is one of the more recent ones we've watched and he loves it. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZimeKqhVPo

Honestly, I just don't think people give kids enough credit. If you don't treat it as a disease or something scary, they won't have any issue with it at all. Sometimes little ones may be a little worried but that's why they can go into another room if they need to. But IME most of them do very well as long as they know that birth is a normal process. If anything, they just get bored waiting around for hours.