What to Do with Son When Baby #2 Comes Along?

some of the hospitals offer a sibling class to help toddlers and preschoolers know what to expect. We did that (my older son was also 3) and got him a Big Brother tshirt. My parents watched him while I was in the hospital and brought him over after everything was settled to see the baby. It all worked out well.

I do not think kids were allowed into the maternity wing due to caution with germs etc.. I had to bring my new baby down to another room near the entrance of the wing so my son could see us. Definitely have the grandparents help out. The first few weeks are rough! But it goes by quick :) Congrats and GL

We had some excellent advice. This is long, but it worked *really* well for us.
First, do not tell him how lucky he is to be a big brother. Tell him how lucky she is to have him as her big brother. He may not think he's lucky at all; saying he is isn't going to change that. (Our youngest is 13 months, and we still use the "you are a very good big sister!" to encourage good behavior. Very effective. And during two or three very rare occasions, I've also turned it into, "I know you want to be a very good big sister. I'm sure you'll do better next time.")
Second, use the things he does well as an opportunity to praise him AND to tell him about what the new baby can't do. In other words, talk up being three and talk down being a baby. "Oh, look at how well you go up those stairs on your own! You can do that because you're three. A baby can't do that. A baby has to be carried EVERYwhere!"
Third, have him make a card for his new sister. Have that card in the bassinet with the baby when he arrives to visit. Tell him how happy she was to receive this wonderful card from her big brother.
If I could underline the "with the baby" part from the last tip, I would. Don't have her in your arms when he comes to visit. He is mostly coming to see you, and a little coming to see the baby. Make sure your arms are open for him. So that means someone will have to call and say they're bringing him in from the parking lot, because they need to know if the baby is being fed.
When he comes in, make it all about him. How much you love him, how much you missed him. If he's interested in checking out the baby, you'll know (it took our older daughter nearly 10 minutes to take a peek, and she didn't touch her for nearly a week... not at all what I'd expected).
Make sure you have something fun for him to do once he's done checking her out. (We happened to have brought the stickers and colors Mad had used to make Fynn's card, but my dad's wife also went to the nurse's station and grabbed a "new baby" coloring sheet and crayons. Who knew?!)
As for whether he sees you in the recovery room or the regular room, I think it should be based more on how you're feeling at the time. He won't know which room is which. All he'll care about is that his mama loves him even with the new little one.
Congratulations on your expanding family!
PS My friend had a repeat C-section and said it was 100 times better than her first. Hoping the same is true for you!

S.,

Congrats! I would have your child stay with your mom and then have her bring him to the hospital when you are settled in your room. The recovery area is too busy and you need that critical bonding time with just you and the baby. GL

M

My son was okay to be in my room anytime, he was 17 months when his sister was born. The same will go for his sister and him for our 3rd due in a few months. They are okay to be in my room anytime.

I had a c/s and he came that evening with his grandparents. I wish they would have waited until the next morning though. This time around I think I will make it more clear when I want visitors.

Just a heads up- my son wasn't ALLOWED in the hospital/nuresery area at all. So are you sure that's an option?
REading books about becoming a big brother helped him (but realistic- babies can't do much).

I told my son that the doctor was going to make mommy a zipper so that he can take his little brother out. (i had a c-section too). It was so cute because after we got home with the baby, my son kept askin me to see my zipper. LOL

My parents were here to watch my oldest son while my husband and I went to the hospital. The next day is when everyone, including my parents and my oldest son came to visit. He is such a proud big brother. :-)

They may not allow him to see her in the recovery room since he's so little. He may get a little ancy, so you may want to wait until they take you to your room, and then he can go see his baby sister.

Congrats to you!

I think it's probably a good plan to take your son to the sitter and have your mom pick him up. I wouldn't have him see you and the baby in the recovery room. It will be way too overwhelming, and honestly, you don't know how your delivery is going to go. It might be pretty upsetting to him to see you just out of surgery. Plus, I don't know if the hospital will even allow him in the recovery room?

When my parents brought our son to see us in the hospital room, we made sure that I wasn't holding the baby. I wanted him to be able to see that I was still available for HIM. Also, we had the baby get him a couple of presents, so we brought those to the hospital too. Honestly, he was more into the presents than the baby, but 17 months later, he will talk about things that happened in the hospital room that even we had forgotten.

Prior to the baby's birth, some things that we told our son was that the baby was our present to him. Essentially, she was going to be HIS baby. This may not be an option for you, but our son pretty much named his sister, so he's been emotionally invested from the get-go.

The day that I went into the hospital, I just told him that I was going to go to the hospital and have the baby. I said his grandma was going to do bedtime with him. I called him on the phone from the hospital before bedtime so that I could sing his songs to him and tell him I love him. The next day, he came to see us. He did another bedtime with grandma, but we came home that night and were home when he woke up the next morning.

Good luck! I'm sure it will be great.

My daughter was born at 2am and my son was visiting us at 9am (this was natural though, so there was no recovery room/time).
We had planned on my sister coming up to watch him while my husband and mom attended the birth, but the baby came so fast I barely made it to the hospital, so my mom just stayed at my house with our sleeping son (she was spending the night all week anyway).
He was 3 1/2 and while he was excited to see her when he first got there and hold her and check out her tiny toes, once that was over all he wanted to do was punch the buttons on my TV remote. The visit lasted about an hour, most of it was him watching cartoons while my husband, mom, and I ogled over the new baby ;)

With 2 of the 3 c-sections I had my kids stay with grandma or an aunt the night before my surgery. As soon as I was out of the recovery room and in my own room is when I had them bring my children up to see me and new baby first. With both my other kids the IV in my arm/hand is what scared them. That first day they kept their distance from me but got really close to the baby and argued about whos turn it was to hold baby. As soon as the IV was out they finally have me hugs! Good luck.

My sister in law was expecting twins with a 3 year old at home. They had gone in for their check up a week before the scheduled c-section and the doctor decided they were getting too large and said it had to be that same day. They're son had been watched by a family member for the appointment, and since the c-section was fit in at 5:30 at night, they decided to have my husband and I go to their house and watch him until the next morning and bring him to the hospital at that point. They talked a lot about having the girls before hand, and on the day of, my brother in law had to go home to get the hospital bags and spoke with their son about how the babies were coming out of Mom's belly that night and how he gets to see them in the morning. They decided to keep his schedule as unchanged as possible which worked really well.

My older son turned two a month before my second son was born. What we did to prepare him was read him a lot of books about becoming a big brother. I went to the library and asked the children's librarian to help me find some. She found a lot--more than we needed. But we checked them all out, read them all, chose the few that were a good fit. We returned the rest and kept renewing the ones we liked and read them to him everyday during the last trimester.
We didn't want him coming to the hospital. I definitely wouldn't bring a toddler to an OR for a c-section, but that's just me. I was induced one night, so we put our son to bed as usual, and prepared him for the fact that his grandparents would be there when he woke up in the morning. He had a couple great days with them, and stuck to his regular routine. My husband, of course, was in and out, so he got to see his Dad too.
When I got home, my husband waited in the doorway with the baby so I could go in and re-unite with our older one. I sat on the ground and read him a book, and then I pointed out that he was able to sit on my lap again, which he hadn't been able to for a number of months. I told him the reason I had been gone was because I had the baby, and asked if he wanted to meet his little brother. Then my husband brought the baby in.
I'll tell you, it was love at first sight!
I think the key is preparation, whatever choices you make. Whatever arrangements you have for his care while you're gone, when and where he meets his little sister, etc. to talk to him about it, fully prepare and include him in it.
Good luck and congratulations!

We had a Big Brother book that we read over and over again to our older son (he was 2 1/2 when his sister was born), and would talk to him about the baby in my belly. We also tried to involve him in the preparations for the new baby as much as we could - but he was only 2 1/2 so who knows how much he understood.

When it was time to have the baby, we were also a scheduled c-section. We took our son to my aunt's and stayed there the night before and left after I had put him to bed for the night. He stayed there all day long when we had the baby, and then my husband went and picked him up in the evening and brought him to the hospital to see me and his baby sister. When visiting hours were over that night, my husband took him home and stayed there with him in his regular routine, while my sister came to the hospital and spent the night with me and the baby to help out. (My husband also worked the next day - instead of wasting a vacation day sitting around the hospital where I had all the help I needed - he could save his vacation to be home with us when we came home from the hospital when I needed more help, and we had more family bonding time.)

And, I am going to go against most of the grain here. We did not do any gifts to our older son from us or from the baby. We felt it wasn't "real life" for lack of a better explanation, and besides, he was too young to know who it was from anyway, and it just didn't seem appropriate to us. He did absolutely fine with no gift. We just made sure that when I fed the baby, he could be right next to me if and when he wanted. We let him hold his sister if he was interested (with us right there) and tried to make sure we were giving him attention too. That's what they want more than any toy.

Well we had our second child my parents watched our son and the next day my parents and my son came to visit at the hosptial. When we had our third my husband and kids came to pick me up and bring me back home with baby.

I always tell my friends having another baby to start carrying around a baby doll wrapped up in a blanket, just so the older sibling can get used to seeing their mommy holding the baby. Do your activities as usual w/your son but start holding the "baby". You might even go as far as saying "we have to be quieter...the baby is sleeping" (or something like that) later on as time draws near.

Its kind of like the egg project some of us did in Home Economics, where you had to partner up w/someone of the opposite sex and pretend the egg was your baby and you were the parents.

gl and congratulations!

we always made sure the older child was the 1st one to visit the new baby. The 1st one to hold the baby, too! We simply called Gma when the baby was born & she brought our son to us.

Nice, simple, & easy....& no drama.

My son was 3 when his little sister was born. He liked reading all the books about bringing home a new baby. Our favorite was the Mister Rogers book, because it also covers the feelings involved, such as missing mommy while she's at the hospital.

The best thing I suggest, if you can arrange it, is to have a nurse take the baby out of the room before your son comes in to see you. Have your son sit with you for a moment before they bring the baby in. My son was so excited when he realized that my belly was "empty" and he knew the baby was not in there anymore.

I ended up going into labor during the night, so my mom came and stayed at the house and was there when my son woke up. He was so happy to see her that he wasn't upset I was gone. Also we had a Big Brother shirt that was a present from the baby, and he wore it to come see us. Overall it went a lot smoother than I could have hoped for. Good luck!

I needed a c-section due to complications, we had the dr. schedule it (we felt weird playing God & deciding when our child would be born). He wanted me to be his 1st patient that day, so he scheduled me VERY early (we had to get up a 4 a.m. b/c we had to be there even earlier than my scheduled time ~ to get checked in, preped, etc.). Our neighbor offered to have our daughter have a sleep-over. She has children around our daughter's age & they play/have sleep-overs here & there ALL the time, so it wasn't unusual to have her sleep over. My parents met us at the hospital, my hubby went in the O.R. w/ me. When I came out, my hubby called our daughter & asked if she thought she had a new brother or sister (we didn't find out). She was quite excited to find out she had a sister! My hubby went to get our daughter to see me. She came to see me every day I was in the hospital & would climb in bed w/ me & we'd talk, sometimes I had her sister w/ me, others I didn't. On the last day, they served me lunch but my daughter thought it was cool, so she sat in my bed & ate most of it (by then I was tired of hospital food)! When we got home, my parents were here & there was a big gift waiting for our oldest daughter. Good luck & congrats!

I would definitely wait until you are both settled in before bringing your son to the hospital. That is what we did with our first child. It was a big enough day without having to keep a 2 year old occuppied. Everything went smoothly but there was still downtime and I was grateful to just have my husband there to talk with and keep my mind occuppied. It also gave my son "fun time" with grandma. It probably kept grandma occuppied too. I delivered my daughter vaginally and she had a significant amount of mucus in her lungs from the delivery. I was a wreck as the doctor's sucked the mucus out of her. Everyone was fine after that, but I am glad my son did not have to see mom a wreck of the baby having problems breathing until the procedure was done.