Can everyone please give Sabina from @mummymatters a warm welcome as she is guest posting for me while I’m away. It’s a great topic that I know many of you have experience with. Don’t forget to pop over and visit her blog as well http://mummymatters.wordpress.com/. Thanks again Sabina.
Image: Itp.nyu.edu
In around two months time, there will be a new man in our house – our baby boy is due at the end of September and we are all getting very excited to meet him. But the closer that D-day comes, the more I wonder how things are going to change in our household. There will, of course, be the obvious things like sleepless nights, stacks of smelly nappies (not that I keep them in a stack you understand) and piles of washing and ironing to rival Ben Nevis but I’m talking more about how the dynamics of our family will change.
Being a stay-at-home Mum I’ve been able to fully indulge myself into my relationship with Little Bean, and whilst I’m sad that we lost two babies last year, I can’t help feeling that there was good reasoning behind it. My relationship with Little Bean has grown and grown in the past year and I still get excited at the thought of spending the day with her when I wake up each morning. I also look forward to bath and bedtime for her at the end of each day mind you!! But I do wonder how our relationship will change, will she be jealous of her new baby brother or will she become the little mother hen that I’m imagining her to be?
Since my bump has become noticeably huge, she seems to have taken great interest in it and is more than happy to tell people that Mummy has a baby in her tummy. She kisses and cuddles bump every day and shrieks with laughter when she feels him kicking. Sometimes I wonder if she really understands what is happening but then I think she is a bright little button. She gets so excited when she sees a baby, telling me “it’s tiny” or “so cute” before patting my tummy and saying “baby”.
Image: bumpsandbabiesonline.com
She currently plays pretty much solely with her dollies, she cuddles them, says they have pooped and changes their “pretend” nappies, she bathes them, dresses them and feeds them bottles of milk which she warms in her toy microwave (always being careful to check that they are not too hot for baby).
I have been told that when the new baby arrives I should encourage her to help me as much as possible, which of course I will do but I am a little anxious that she may try picking him up by his head or pulling him about by his arm when my back is turned.
And then there’s Curly! Now things are slightly different for him because he has already been through the baby stage with us once with Little Bean and he sailed through it all. He couldn’t have been a more proud big brother if he’d tried but my fear for him is that now with two siblings at our house he will feel like an outsider when he is only here on a part-time basis? He is extremely excited about the prospect of having a baby brother, which is what he said he wanted right from the start but we have tried to explain to him that it will be some time before he can play football and do play fighting with his little brother. There will be a 9 year age gap between him and the baby so I wonder what sort of relationship they will have. When he visits us now he is already reaching the stages of not really wanting to be with us but outside playing with his friends.
Image: Dreamstime.com
We tried very hard when Little Bean was born to make sure that Curly was as involved as possible (though we couldn’t get him to change a nappy for love nor money!), once breastfeeding had finished he would have a go at giving her a bottle or spoon feeding her. He loved all the faces she pulled at him and the way that her eyes would follow him wherever he went, but inevitably there were times when we couldn’t fulfil his needs because baby needed seeing to first. I hope that with two tiny tots around the house he won’t feel like a spare part. I know that it is down to me and Hubby to make sure this doesn’t happen but sometimes you get so wrapped up in your new baby, the rest of the world pales into insignificance.
How did you manage when Baby number 2, 3, 4 arrived on the scene? Did you have any older step-children around and how did they take to the next new arrival?
Just when I was going to give up the Secret Post Club, the Royal Mail Red van pulled up and cheered me up to no end. I absolutely love the idea of the gift swap, but at the moment with everything going on, I really couldn’t face trying to remember to buy a gift by the 15th of every month. But, this was just what the doctor ordered.
