When A Baby Joins The Family.

Having a new baby rocks your world. I know for me, Javi was my hardest transition. But having a baby join an existing family with kids is a delicate situation, too. I want to make sure no one feels left out or left behind, and I’m also just so tired and overwhelmed that it can be hard to navigate and support all of the inevitable emotions with a clear head. I wrote a post many years ago — when Javi met Lola — about introducing siblings to their new baby sibling. I used those tips for Lola’s birth and Eva’s birth. Here are the things I planned to do + carry out when baby #4 arrived.

For starters, let’s talk gifts:

A fun little thing we did for each new baby is have the baby bring a gift to each older sibling. Walker brought a squishmallow and a new hat to each kid. The gifts were waiting in the room and may have been acknowledged before the baby! 🙂

The older kids each went shopping for the baby, too. Javi got him a stuffed animal, Lola got him a blanket, and Eva got him a onesie.

Now, let’s talk the hospital visit:

This time around, I felt like the kids were a bit older/mature and so we did a cliffs notes version of that original blog post linked above. Here are three things we did when the kids met baby Walker in the hospital:

1. Baby stays in the bassinet! When the kids first arrived to the hospital room, we made sure he was in the bassinet and neither Sean or I was holding him. This allowed us to properly greet and hug the kids and also ensured no one felt replaced or jealous about the baby being with us for the past two days.
2. Introduce the baby to the kids. Rather than focus on how lucky the older siblings are to have a new baby — we introduced the baby to his older siblings and explained how lucky the baby is to have the older kids. This is a bit of a language switch but it’s really easy to do!
3. Let them hold the baby (+ then be done). They each wanted to hold the baby right when they walked in. Javi and Lola held him and wanted to keep him. Eva wanted to hold him, and after a minute or two, she was done with him. That’s totally fine! We just take the baby back without any surprise. The topponcino really helps children hold babies and then it helps people safely transition the baby between arms.

And lastly, bringing baby home:

There are a lot of emotions when the baby comes home and into the older siblings’ space. In our case, we had to change up our whole 3-bedroom house to fit our new family of six! So the kids were already feeling like this new family member was “taking their stuff” — we all moved bedrooms, we had to give up our playroom (I’m still devastated about this one!), and we had to purge belongings to make space. So in order to foster love and acceptance and steer clear of resentment, I try to do these two things:

1. Older siblings can help, but they aren’t expected to. It can be really easy to consistently ask the kids to grab a diaper, or look for the pacifier, or even to hold the baby for a minute. And many times, they want to and they’re happy to help. But, then there are moments where the kids say no — and that needs to be respected. I like when they help out, but I don’t expect it and certainly don’t guilt them into it.
2. Never blame the baby. Again, it’s pretty easy to blame things on the baby… here me out. One kid wants to go to the playground and you respond with “we can’t right now, because the baby needs a bottle”. Or you’re at the playground and the baby starts to cry, so you say “we have to leave, the baby is crying”. Or someone needs help with something at home and you say “I can’t right now, I’m holding the baby”. I don’t want the kids to resent their new sibling so I try to rework the language. “we can’t go to the playground, it’s almost dinner time”, “we have 5 more minutes at the playground and then it’s time to leave”, “I can help you in just a few minutes, I’ll be right there”. I swear it helps!

Overall, it’s been a very smooth month as we transition to being a family of six. The first week was tricky. We were late to everything, overtired, a mess, and had late dinners and missed bedtimes. Each week gets a bit easier. We’re slowing returning to our regularly scheduled programming. 🙂