Hi everybody, so this show is for all those moms out there who have one baby at home,
one child at home, and are bringing home a new baby.
You might really experience a lot of guilt feelings over not spending more time with
your older child.
Whereas before in any of the free time that you had, you focused on your older child now
you have substantially less time and most of your time is being spent taking care of
the new baby.
Your older child might be having some very tricky feelings.
I remember bringing home my second child and my first who was only 13 and half months older
actually went into a total funk.
And one family member told me "He seems like a very sad child."
I just felt so guilty.
Why had I needed to do this to him?
Why did I have another baby so soon?
I could have waited.
I had totally changed his world and I felt totally guilty about it.
So the question is what do you do when you're in this situation?
Well for starters, and I have another video about this because I think some of these things
can be really good, I think it's a really good idea to try to involve your older child
in the baby's life as much as possible and give your older child a feeling of ownership
when it comes to taking care of the baby.
So anything you can think of because you're going to be spending a lot of time taking
care of that baby, involve the older child.
And praise him, say "Can you go get me that diaper?
Thank you soooo much.
You are my best helper!
Can you help mommy change the baby's diaper?"
And emphasize the fact that it is your baby.
Tell your older child it is his baby.
The baby is part of his life and he is responsible for the older baby, the baby needs him.
Tap into any of those feelings to make the older child feel responsible and feel like
the big brother and to make him feel good.
So try to just develop a dynamic where you're both taking care of the baby.
But along with that, make sure you focus on your older child.
Try to get some period of time, you might not have a lot of time, it might just reading
him a special book on his own.
You can get some of those great books about being the older brother or older sister.
They're just adorable- I love those books.
But try to make sure when you look at your day, you come up with your day plan, that
you have some concentrated amount of time with the older child, just on his own or try
to have daddy take him out to do something fun or grandma.
And two really great tricks actually from my partner Deidra, first on the involving
the older child with the younger child she came up with a game.
And she would say to the older child looking at the baby "Does he look like a puppy or
does he look like an old man?"
and the older child would just laugh.
And one day he'll say, "You know mommy, he really looks like a puppy, and another day
he'll say, "You know mommy, he really looks like an old man."
And this is really such a fun way to sort of tease the whole situation, get the older
child involved, let him feel like he's making a decision, he's involved, it's sort of light,
and it's sort of fun.
And let me think, what was her other great trick?
Because I know she had a really great trick.
Oh she said "Listen guys, to all her friends coming over to visit me?
Don't just bring a present for my baby; bring a present for my older child.
He's actually the one who needs the present more.
He has more mature feelings.
The baby's never going to know whether he got a gift or not, but the older child is
going to be totally aware of this.
You can't have the baby be just showered with all these gifts and here's the older child
who actually cares and he doesn't get anything.
So I think that's totally reasonable.
Say to your friend "You know what, don't splurge on the baby gift, splurge on the gift for
the older kid.
Or get him a book or get him something else and we'll focus on that gift.
And then you take that baby gift and you sort of put it by the side and you open it that
night.
Don't open it front of your older child.
He doesn't need to see all of that.
So anyway, these are some things that you can do to make your older child feel better.
And my number one thing I always feel about anxiety, which we all experience, and I experience
a lot of it is that when you have a plan your anxiety goes down.
It's this sort of not knowing what to do and feeling overwhelmed that really eats into
your gut and makes you feel guilty and makes you feel anxious.
So when you have a plan for dealing with your older child's feelings by doing these practical
little things, you are going to start to feel less guilty and I think you're going to feel
more harmony in the house and you're going to feel less jealously on the part of the
older child as well.
Now the other thing to do is to think long term.
This period of time during which you're so involved in taking care of the newborn is
relatively short lived and very soon by the time your baby is, I would say, 6-months definitely
by 9-months to 12-months old your older child is going to start having a lot of fun playing
with that baby and seeing the baby respond, and seeing what the baby does and of course,
he now has a playmate and hopefully, a friend for life.
So you have done him a favor, really, the person who most benefits from that baby is
the other sibling for the rest of his life.
So you're doing this for him so keep that long-term goal in mind and remember that you're
not a bad parent for having had another baby.
It is a good thing for that baby to have another playmate and another friend and you've done
a good thing.