How we’re transitioning from one to two kids
We recently welcomed our second baby, Isaac into our family. (You can read about our birth story here).
Our older son turned 4 in March, so they’re just a little over 4 years apart.
It’s only been about a month that I’ve been a mom of 2 but here are some things we did and didn’t do as we transition to having 2 kids.
A lot of the things that have worked or are working for our boys, I think really has to do with our 4 year age gap and how much our older son understands at his age.
Every kid is so different and I’m always team you-do-you, but here are some things that seem to be working for us.
During Pregnancy
We let our 4 year be involved in every way possible. I had him give my husband my positive pregnancy test when I first found out. He obviously had no idea what he was holding but it still felt nice to have him involved.
Pregnancy announcement and sharing our news
For our pregnancy announcement on social media, we took a picture recreating our pregnancy announcement from when I was pregnant with Aaron, but this time we had him hold the ultrasound picture.
We also let him be the one to tell our friends and family (and his entire preschool). It was more fun to let it be his news – he was going to be a big brother (!) than have it be my news – that I was pregnant.
Gender reveal
When I was pregnant with Aaron we did a golf ball gender reveal (you can watch the video here) and threw a whole party. We love an excuse to celebrate, especially to celebrate a baby!
This time we just had our parents over and got a cake (Whole Foods has the best price) with either pink or blue frosting inside. We explained if it was pink it would be a sister or blue for a brother. At this point he already had names picked out either way. You can watch our gender reveal video here.
Big brother books
We had been gifted a few books about being a big brother and he loved reading them. They mostly talk about a baby coming and how a big brother can help mommy and daddy with the baby (play with the baby, help get clean diapers, etc).
A few favorites:
Taking him to doctors appointments
At first I purposely scheduled all of my appointments while he was at school. (My husband likes to join me at appointments so we needed times that we were both available). But I mixed up what week his spring break was so we had to bring him to an appointment. My doctor was so wonderful and let him be really involved in the appointment. He got to hold the baby heart rate monitor and hear his baby brother’s heart beat.
He of course wanted to come to every appointment after that. We brought him a few more times, mostly because of what times they had available appointments. But we also purposely brought him to our last ultrasound so he could see his baby brother and get him excited. (We also brought things to keep him entertained while we waited – like his tablet and headphones – 4 year old boys can only sit still for so long).
Involving him in plans
As we got closer to the baby coming, I asked my 4 year old how he wanted to meet his baby brother. I gave him the options of meeting him at the hospital or waiting until we got home. (He chose hospital). I also asked if he wanted to wear ‘nice’ clothes or if I should get him a big brother shirt. (He said big brother shirt. Thankfully my mom bought him this best brother shirt because the matching big/little brother shirts i ordered on the way to the hospital didn’t come in time.
Obviously if your kid is younger they might not understand enough to make these decisions or might have less opinions.
Meeting His Baby Brother
Aaron was very specific about having his grandma bring him to the hospital to meet his baby brother. The day after he was born, she gave him the option to skip school and go right to the hospital. He chose to go to school to tell all of his friends that his baby was born and would come meet him after school. Preschooler priorities.
We have some very sweet pictures and videos of them meeting for the first time.
Transition at home
Obviously having a new newborn baby changes everything. I’m waking up with the baby multiple times a night, I’m feeding him all day long. I now how to divide my attention between two kids.
It’s definitely been a transition…
and a struggle for our 4 year old.
He’s obsessed and in love with his new baby brother. But he also misses his mommy time.
Bedtime routine
It’s still a work in progress but one of my favorite things I’ve decided to do is have the baby go to sleep about an hour before our big kid.
So my ideal bedtime routine schedule is starting the baby’s bedtime routine around 6pm. Bath, pajamas, bottle, a couple baby books, some snuggles and then bed by 7pm.
During this hour my husband is probably getting dinner ready and our 4 year old is either playing or helping with the baby. I always give him the option to help with his bath or “read” him a book but never force or push it. He’s memorized one of the books we would read to him when he was a baby (Love You Baby).
Then we have dinner, just the 3 of us, and do our 4 year olds bedtime routine. Similar to the baby’s – bath or shower, pajamas, books and snuggles on the couch, brush teeth and bed by 8/830.
I know some people would hate spending 2-2.5 hours on their kids bedtime routine. And it currently helps that I’m home on maternity leave. But I enjoy their bedtime routine (more so now that my 4 year old doesn’t scream at me every time I try to wash his hair). It’s just some special one on one time with my boys.
I really think having the baby go to sleep first has been huge for us. My 4 year old knows once the baby goes to sleep he’s going to get mommy and daddy’s full attention. He gets lots of attention from dad throughout the day but he still needs his mommy.
Things we didn’t do
Gift from baby
This seems to be a popular way to get big siblings excited about their new babies, buying them a stuffed animal or toy and saying it’s from the baby. I thought about this one for a while. I considered getting him some big paw patrol or superhero toy he’s been wanting. But decided against it.
I wanted the baby to be the ‘gift’
I’d rather him be excited about the baby than some thing he’ll quickly forget about.
He gets toys all the time. I’d rather him focus his attention on meeting his brother than the new toy.
Also could be because of their age difference or just that my 4 year old is too smart for us, but I did have a friend mention that he wouldn’t believe that the baby actually got him the gift. He would know it was from mommy and daddy.
(We once tried to get him to eat something healthy by saying Ryder from paw patrol eats it and he asked which episode).
Share Baby’s Name
With both kids we chose to not tell anyone baby’s name til after they were born. And if learned anything from how quickly our news spread at Aaron’s preschool, we knew he wouldn’t be able to keep baby’s name a secret. So we didn’t tell him. We also were completely undecided til after we left the hospital but that’s another story.
Throughout my pregnancy, we let him pick and guess names. He started with Paw Patrol names (he loves the name Ryder) and then names of his friends from school (was very set on the name Kai for a while) and also for months was calling the baby Heart (to the point that we even considered it for a middle name for a little while).
We are still a work in progress. My 4 year old still ends up in our bed every night to snuggle mommy. But at least he now knows he has to stay in bed and can’t get up with mommy when I get up to feed the baby.
He’s still learning his boundaries around the baby but does know he has to wash his hands before holding his baby brother.
I love how much they love each other already and can’t wait to watch them grow up together.
