how old are your other kids and what is the plan for them when you birth?

[Momma Aimee]

DS will be 3 -- the EDD is the week of his birthday.

Mom is coming to stay with him -- but she is 7 hours drive time alone, not counting being at work, or having to work, or whatever....so we are workig on back up plans.....

ideally Theo will be brought to the hosptial when i start to push and get to come in tot he room to see the baby as soon as the sheets are changed and i am cleaned up -- soon after birth. depnding on time of day -- we will not get him up in teh night for this.

it is so tough -- all the schdueling adn what if and back up plans ..... and with the baby's arrive so up inthe air -- week 38 liek T, week 42.....?????

What have you all gotten worked out?

AImee

[mittendrin]

Ds's are going to be 3 and 5. We have a few friends that I can recruit to come over and watch, luckily one of them is pretty much available all the time. If all fails we'll have to take the with us and dh will watch them at the hospital until someone can come to pick them up there. I am hoping for a quick labor and delivery like last time. I went into labor early evening and stayed home until 11:30pm. By that time one of our friends had arrived and ds was in bed anyway. I delivered quickly and dh was back home around 3am.

[FillingMyQuiver]

DS will be 3.5yo and DD will be 2 (her b-day is 4 days after my EDD. Her EDD was the same day as this babe's )

Honestly, we haven't come up w/ our plan, yet. I'm thinking they might be around for the birth. My 18yo sis and mom will be coming (they live 15min away), so my sis may watch them and keep them occupied. I may just end up sending them to my mom's so my dad can watch them w/ my 2yo brother I think we're just going to play it by ear.

[crunchywannabe]

my kids will be at time of birth:

12
10
9
7
5
3

they will come to the hospital with us and be there for the birth. we have had them all present during my last 3 births and it was great and they loved it.

[Mama2 '05'06]

Dd will be 2 1/2, Ds will be 16 months. Hopefully my mom will be able to watch them while the baby is born. If it is born at night, then dh can go back home and bring them in the morning. If it is born during the day, then my mom can bring them in to see the baby.

[myjulybabes]

They'll be 6 and 8, and if we decide to go with the scheduled c-section, they'll be at school, then dh will pick them up and bring them to visit, and they'll go home with grandparents-- probably dd with my mom and ds with MIL, if we're still speaking to her. We purposely scheduled for a Friday so it would work out that way. If we cancel the section and wait for labor, my mom will probably keep them, she only lives about 20-30 min away, whereas MIL is over an hour.

[LittleBrownDog]

DD will be a couple of months shy of three- I'm having a homebirth, so she'll be here. MIL will be here, and I have a friend who lives very nearby who is a photographer, so she's going to come primarily to occupy DD but also to take pictures. If it's a nice day they can go for a walk if it gets to be too much for DD (though a nice day in WI in November is unlikely) and if she really needs to clear the scene or we need to go to the hospital my friend will take her to her house.

[Curlita]

My son will be three at the time of the birth. If the baby's placenta cooperates and migrates north, I'll have a VBAC. Otherwise, it will be a scheduled C-section. The general plan is that my sister and mom will drive down from their home (about 1.5 hours north -- more like an hour if my sister is driving) and mom will take care of Dylan while Michelle comes to the hospital with my husband and I for the birth. We might arrange some kind of back-up care in town, in case we need to leave for the hospital before they arrive, but we haven't gotten that far yet.

[Izzy's Mom]

DS #1 will be almost 6 and DS #2 will be just over 3. The basic plan is that they will be dropped off at my sister's as soon as possible after labour starts (she is a 45 minute drive away) or she will come to my house at some point and watch them there. Back-up plan is my dad and stepmom and I want another option but we're still thinking about it.

I am having a hospital birth and want the boys only to come after the baby is born. It may be fairly soon after if the birth is during daytime, otherwise next morning if a nightime birth.

[pixiedust]

I will have a 2 year old and 4 year old If it's during the day when I go into labor we are going to call my mom to come over and be there for the girls.. but they are welcome to watch/ join us if they want And hopefully we can get them in the room before the baby is actually born. I KNOW my 4 year old wants to see the baby born. She's watched all of the birth video's with me and thinks it's awesome LOL.. and she's looking forward to this baby like crazy. (trust me.. at least 200 random strangers know "we're" having a baby). But, my mom will be there in case they aren't up to it for any reason

If I go into labor at night we'll just let the girls sleep and wake my 4 year old right at the end (planning a homebirth)

[strawberryfields08]

I haven't thought too much about it yet, but I am getting a little worried. DD is 16 mo now will be 21 mo at birth. At our last mw appt. she got really scared whent he mw was checking me out. I am having a homebirth and would like for her to be there but not if she gets scared. My MIL will be off work and my mom can be off at a moments notice and they both live about 1 min. from me so they will both be here to help with her I guess. I am sure my grandma and sister will also be here. Maybe we will come up with a more formal plan closer to time as I can see how DD is reacting to the mw better.

[Momma Aimee]

we were playing with the idea od DS being there for part of labor ..... he will be at home anyway .... and trying to get him in to see the baby crown and actually be born.......

but

he has been two 2 OB appt with me... and freaked out at the blood perssure cuff and totally paniced at the doppler to hear the heart beat...............

so we decided to just forget that all together.

i will be with him while i lobor at home.

he might get to visit the Labor room once we go to the hosptial -- depends how hard we feel it will be for him to leave. aslo how medical it all looks -- and we will have to time to to avoid my bp checks and so on....

but no coming in till the baby is there, adn the medical stuff is gone.

[Rikki Jean]

We're having a homebirth in the water, and Josiah, who will be 25 mos when the baby comes, will be here. I really won't be surprised if he spends the entire time in the tub with me, since he is a little fish and would love to spend his whole life bathing or swimming.

We really want him to be a part of the birth, and so far he is scared of nothing, so I'm not too worried about any of it freaking him out. I've watched a few birth videos with him, and he's been moderately interested, mostly when the baby starts to cry. He was really great at my prenatal the other day; he was very interested in taking my blood pressure...by putting the pump in his mouth.

The plan is for DH's grandma to be here to keep Josiah occupied when we need him to be or when he needs to sleep. She has "the touch" with him, and he loves her to death, so that won't be a problem at all. I'm really close with her too, so I don't mind her being at the birth.

[greenmountainmomma]

DS is 4, but just a few months shy of 5. We decided to NOT have him at the birth because he would completely freak out, and if it's anything like last time, I don't want to have to censor myself and pretend that I'm feeling o.k.

That said... my dad lives in town (5 minutes from us) so he'll take him, of course, but DS has never spent the night away from us and is very much of a momma & daddy's boy. I'm sad to think about spending the night away from him during this time .

Depending on the time of day that the baby's born, maybe he can come and stay overnight at the hospital with us (?). I just want to make it easy on the little guy -- he's been an only child for a long time now...

[GinaRae]

Aimee, I wonder if the way he freaks out you shouldn't bring him at all to the hospital. He may still freak at the equipment and people around, even the next day... I don't know if his personality would "blame" the baby or not. AND it's much easier for you in the scheduling department and emotionally if you're not worried about him getting there and coming in at just the right time.

Maybe you will just have the sweet idea of him being with someone he cares for and happy and cozy there until either the next day or when you return. It's not forgetting him or not being loyal if you allow yourself to just concentrate on giving birth and on the baby. You said you're worried about labor, so maybe just remove that extra bit of stress over where Theo is???

Or maybe I am way off base

As far as we go, we will have the boys here at home with us. They can be in the room or out and if they want to leave, we will have back-up plans so they can leave.

[*Lindsey*]

DS is almost 4 and DD will be 2 next month. My MIL will come here and stay with the kids. She's only 7 miles away.

[sorteep]

Jay will be almost 17 and Evan almost 7

if all goes well Jay will stay home with Evan then bring him (and pick up my mIL on the way) to the birth ctr shortly after delivery (depending on time of day and day of week..we have MIL and neighbors as back up if the timing is weird!

[Momma Aimee]

Gina Ria -- you are right

we have decided that he will not come to the hosptial untill all medical stuff is gone (at the hos i will birth at the stuff ALL goes in to the walls and so on to leave the room loooking like a bedroom with a ugly bed. I am cleaned up and the baby is with me.

he MAY get to visit me in the labor room before hand -- but i doubt it.

on one hand i do not want to freak him out, but on the other i don't want to shelther him so that he thinks birth isn't normal .... yk?

AImee

[GinaRae]

Originally Posted by Aimee21972

on one hand i do not want to freak him out, but on the other i don't want to shelther him so that he thinks birth isn't normal .... yk?

AImee

Oh, I get it, but if he's "freakish" about these things, and he is going to be only three...

My kids were all three years after the last (until this one that's 6, 9 and 12 years younger!). Such a sweet time to add a sibling! They understand some things, but don't others. I know having his brother in the hospital for jaundice was really scary for him, even though there was just the incubator thing and nothing else really scary.

But you know what he can handle! It will all be just fine, I am sure! And when they're just turning three around the birth they're usually SO SWEET with the baby and so helpful, etc.. Ahh... melancholy..

[JamesMama]

My MIL is coming to our house to stay with James. They will stay here until the baby is born, and then depending on the time of day, Josh will come home, pick up James and bring him to the hospital to see the baby. MIL will cool her heels, take a shower, eat, whatever...and then come in to see the baby once James has got 'his time'.

Of course if it is 3am we will wait until morning, we won't be dragging James out of bed for it...he'll just be unhappy.

MIL has to travel approx 15 minutes so not too worried about that.

We are contemplating not bringing James to the hospital at all because hospitals and doctors FREAK him out, we plan on touring the OB dept before the baby is born to test the waters and if James is still scared we'll just wait until we get home, DH will have MIL bring James to the hospital and DH will let James peek through the window and then MIL will get to see Aldria...it all depends on James fear level at the time...he's in a 'scared' phase right now so...