Pregnant with Second, First Kiddo is Five

[Anonymous]

I worried a lot about jealousy as im an only child and my oldest never asked for a sibling. They are 3.5 and 7 now. I involved the older one early on. She could touch snd lids the baby first day home after handwashing and no touching the face. I told the baby "no" and "wait" all the time in ear shot of the oldest so shed feel like she is getting attention too. We had minimal jealousy early on. I carried the baby a lot while doing stuff the 3/4 year old liked. It started to become worse when the youngest started walking and taking toys etc but we worked through it. I never made DD1 feel like she was responsible for anything with DD2, not physically and not her feelings. We made baby nap time a special time to spend with a parent and play with special toys/books. DD1 also hated the word "big sister" she was anxious that meant less mommy time etc so we didnt use it as soon as we figured out the words made her upset not her actual sister At current ages we work on them not egging each other on and respecting personal space etc.

[Anonymous]

Mine are 5.5 years apart. My oldest really wanted a sibling and was super excited. But my kids are grown now and I can't remember how we told my oldest he was going to have a sibling. We chose not to find out the sex of DC2, and DS1 really wanted a sister. But when we told him he had a brother (I called him from the hospital; it was the first call we made), he did not seem to remember he had wanted a sister and was just super excited. He never mentioned a sister again.

The adjustment was a little hard--DS1 was a little jealous that the baby took so much of my time. But once the newborn period was over, we never had any other issues between them, other than having to closely monitor any roughhousing because DS1 was so much bigger. As they got older we did occasionally have to remind DS1 that he was not DS2's parent, lol. They are 25 and 20 now and get along well.

I LOVED this age gap FWIW. I really liked that each of them got tons of attention in their baby/toddler years, and then it was nice to have them always at different stages---a rational 7 year old to talk to when the 2- year-old was in the tantrumming stage, a still cuddly 9- year-old when the teenager was driving us mad. Also so great to put distance between the two college searches. And of course expense-wise we only had one at a time in daycare and then in college. Some people say that it's hard to do things as a family with this kind of age gap, but we didn't find to be too much of a problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have a 5.5 year age difference and it’s actually been great. We have two boys. I think the age difference is honestly hardest on me due to their different stages.

My oldest is at the age where leading tasks brings him great pride. He enjoys taking responsibility and doing things on his own but also “taking care” of his brother. This is done through getting him a pacifier when crying or grabbing extra diapers.

He also is very protective of his brother. If he’s crying he’ll come and get me and tell me.

I hope your experience is similar because I was very nervous but they obviously have quite a bond.

I’m an idiot and read your post wrong.

We told him at dinner one night. And then when we found out the gender we let him cut a cupcake with the blue inside. It was just us three and he thought he was “breaking news” to us. He loved that.

We have a 7 year difference and we did something similar.

Told our oldest about the baby by reading a book about big brothers.
Then for the gender reveal we got a chocolate heart filled with pink m&ms from Etsy.
He smashed the chocolate heart with a little wooden mallet that came with the heart and the pink candies spilled out.
He loved it. He’s a great big brother. He loves his little sis so much.