Is my Toddler ready for a Sibling?
Well HELLO to you!
It's been a while since I blogged here...saying I was busy is an understatement. More of "overly preoccupied" to put into words.
Here I am expecting another baby in few weeks! Before that I was preoccupied with nesting - preparing our little home for the coming of a new member of the family. I'll maybe share with you all about that in a different post :) Other than that of course, I have my "jobs" to juggle. By the end of November, Kiel will be a ring bearer for a friend's wedding, and we've been practicing "walking" and holding a pillow, plus buying his clothes for that. We've planned a baby shower plus I'm still barely halfway with decorating for Christmas and buying gifts! And lately I have been troubled by our bills and loans and whatnots...the preggy hormones have kicked in hard! I think about everything, plus being emotional about things doesn't help. Oh the woes of being pregnant.
But I do not want to focus on the problems...
What started me writing again is my little boy. Having another baby so soon after Kiel made me worried at first. He'll be almost 22 months old by the time baby arrives. Handling one child is already a handful, can I really take care of two all of a sudden? It still worries me, especially now that my due date is nearing, I am now approaching 36 weeks into pregnancy... But what worries me more is Kiel's reaction to arrival of the new baby.
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| Kuya Kiel :) |
Oh, he is now a kuya (big brother) and he somehow knows that too...makes my worries go away :) I've mentioned before that he refers to my tummy as "baby", that's just one thing. There are articles on the web on how to prepare your toddler for a sibling...but every child is different so there's no standard for sure.
What did I do to somehow prepare Kiel for expecting a baby? Things happened very casual actually.
When my tummy started showing, and I begun my ritual of putting baby oil and body butter on it, Kiel showed curiosity and interest. He wanted to put lotion on my tummy too. He would be the one to get the baby oil and body butter for me. I told him there's a baby inside. I guess that's when he started calling my tummy as the "baby".
My husband also chanced upon this beautiful video on YouTube, and we watched together with Kiel:
We told him he's going to have a baby sister soon.
We've also been browsing his baby pictures, I tell him that was him when he was a little baby. Kiel loves to look at pictures, so now every time he sees a picture of a baby, he cries out "baby!" We also watch his baby videos.
Seeing his baby pictures and videos again makes me more excited for our baby girl! I want to hold and cuddle a little person all over again :)
We also read books with babies in them, like his Rhythm of My Day and Bus Drives to Town books. There are pictures of a mommy with a baby there so I tell him "this is the mommy and that's her baby". His Nursery Rhymes book has Pat-a-Cake and Rock-a-Bye-Baby. When we sing Rock-a-Bye-Baby we each have a stuffed toy to rock in our arms :) and hums to the tune, it's so cute!
Our Kindermusik classes also had some influence. We sing songs with the words "baby" in them. Our recent sessions are about different sounds. We listen to the sound of an airplane, a dog, and a baby crying etc. So Kiel now knows what a crying baby sounds like. Some of the families in our classes also bring their little babies to class and have them join in. I tell Kiel that they're sister/brother/ate/kuya. He's also fond of having other kids around to play with, so I'd like to think that he'd be happy with another baby in the house.
Kiel has always been imitating what we do, so when we fold clothes he wants to do some too. He even enumerates or names the clothes. He knows when it's mommy's shirt or daddy's socks or his own clothes. When it's pink and tiny, he says it's for baby :)
I'd like to think my toddler is ready for another member of the family. I take it by his cues, him being feeling all "grown up" and all...as he tries to feed himself now and "kind of" helping around with chores: like packing away stuff and "cleaning" with a rug and his mini walis, hehe.
I still don't know for sure how he's going to react when the baby arrives. But I can't wait for that day when the two of them finally meet :)
Until then,
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