New Baby & 17 Month Old!

I had identical twin 17 month old boys when my youngest was born. We talked about the new baby and that they were going to be big brothers all the time. We also made sure that they had special things to do when the baby came. Her little world will be rocked when new baby comes. Just make her a part of your new routine as much as possible & she will be fine!

Hi Cari! Congrats on your new baby! I gave birth to my daughter when my son was 19 months old. I did not want my son at the hospital b/c 1. you can't keep him still as he is at the age where he wants to explore EVERYTHING and 2. I didn't want to expose him to hospital germs. Instead, my sister came to stay while I was in the hospital and she and my husband took care of my son for the 2 days I was gone.
When we brought my daughter home, I let my son "inspect" her while she was still in her car seat. I did not take her out or carry her. He took a peek at her, offered her some of his soggy cookie, and when she didn't respond, he lost interest in her very quickly. I was instructed by my midwife that I should not hold the baby when introducing her to my toddler son so that he would not feel he was being replaced.
The transition was easier than I expected. Just be sure to save one on one time for your daughter(even if its just one hour a week) and try not to say "no" all the time. At first you are so afraid that the older child will accidentally hurt the baby but don't discourage her when she tries to touch. At not even 2,they are pretty clumsy and not very good at being "gentle" just yet so you just have to be smooth about distracting her or showing her the proper way to interact with her baby brother. Be mindful not to yell out," No! be careful!" b/c then she may start acting out and misbehaving to get attention.
This advice could be hot air for all I know as toddler girls may be totally different with babies than toddler boys.
However I can tell you that th efun really starts when the younger child gets closer to 6 months and there is more interaction between the 2 children. My daughter is 4 mos old and my 23 month old son is her hero. She absolutely adores him and he can make her laugh like no other. The best is when I put them in the bath together( i put the baby on one of those bather bouncy thingies). My son sits in the bubble bath right next to her and enjoys helping me rinse her with the cup. He gets a kick out of poking her in her fat little belly and she laughs and laughs to the point where she can hardly breathe. Its so sweet to watch. :)

My boys are 18 months apart, and I had Tyler brought to the hospital to meet his new brother. He also helped feed him and change him. We spent time with him. We are getting ready to do this again in September where our girls will be 17 months apart, and we plan on doing the same thing. Kylee will be at the hospital as long as she is not sick to meet her new sister Bella.

We had our second baby when our son was 26 months old. We didn't do anything too special. We got him a "Big Brother" book that we read to him daily towards the end of my pregnancy. It was all about how fun it is being a big brother. My mom came up to stay with him for the C-Section and she kept him to his same routine, which I feel is very important. Not once has having the baby caused his routine to change. Meals, bed time, bath time, naps, etc all remained constant. Obviously we were talking it up to him for a few weeks before hand and told him all about the baby and how she would be his very own little sister, etc. I don't know how much he understood as he isn;t very talkative, but the end result has been wonderful. My parents brought him to see us in the hospital. He walked right in and announced "Hi Mommy, Hi Daddy, Hi Lucky Baby!" (Her name is Lexi so he pronounces it as Lucky.) He accepted her as part of his family immediately. The same thing happened the day we came home. He loves to watch us take care of her and to give her kisses. The only thing we have to watch out for is him trying to make her play with his toys. He tries throwing his cars into her crib telling her, "Lucky Baby play cars!" All of my friends with two have said the same thing. I think that for the most part, older sibs really do quite well. I woudl guess the problems kick in when baby is getting into the older child's stuff!

Congrats on the new baby! My daughter loved books, so I made it a point that each time I nursed the baby, I read her a book of her choice while I nursed. That didn't take the full nursing time, so I was able to give the new baby undivided attention for the remaining time. Of course, big sister was busy helping take care of the baby, too, getting diapers, etc. We also bought her a new doll, so she mimicked my actions with her doll~~even nursing. Enjoy these special times!

We just experienced this six weeks ago! My little guy was 20 months old when we brought our daughter home. He has done wonderfully! I would highly recommend her routine staying as close to the same as possible. If there is anyway your parents could stay at your house that might even help. One thing that I read somewhere from a pediatrician that I believe has really helped us is when both of the kids are crying-go to the oldest. She will remmeber it and the baby won't! That was the best advice I ever found. I believe it has really solved a lot of potential jealousy issues. Also, whenever the baby is napping and my son is awake I always spend one on one time w/him, my husband also spends a great deal of time w/our son when he gets home from work. Thomas is the first one he goes to see-not the baby so that he knows he is still at the top of dad's list. For the most part my son ignores our baby, but he has his moments of curiousity as well! He has done really well! I am sure yours will as well.

Good luck!

well i gave birth to my daughter when my son was only 10 months old..yes very close... both c-section. my son actually stayed with my mom n dad while we were in the hospital. we introduced him to his lil sister when we got home and for the first few weeks it was easy cuz all he wanted to do was look at her and touch her but weeks rolled by when all he did was hit her,he realized that she's here to stay. at this moment he is still jealous and when i say the word baby they come running, whoever comes first..my daughter is 13 months old now and son is 23 months old. good luck.

My two are 16 months apart. When I went in for my c-section for my son my mother came to stay at our home with my daughter. I think being at home with her really helped because everything she needed was right there and she felt more comfortable. So if there is anyway your mom can stay at your house it might help. We had our mother bring her to the hospital the day after he was born to meet him. I am so glad we did she was so happy to meet him and I was missing her like crazy (I had never been away from her for longer than 1 day). During the day my husband would come back home to have playtime with her and my mother would come to the hospital to care for me. The day before we came home my husband bought her a play kitchen and set it up. So when we came home she would have something new to play with. It worked out great!!! She was distracted by the new toys that she really didn't notice I was having to pay so much attention to the new baby. We were really lucky because he was such a good baby so I was able to spend alot of my day with her. The transition went great for the first couple of weeks. Then we had about 3-4 weeks of rough times, but it got better and they are truly the best of friends now.

I had my mother bring our son to the hospital for the delivery and I fully intend to do the same thing with both kids this September when we deliver baby #3. I think it is important for them to see the baby from the get go and feel like a part of the process. I talk to our 16 month old every day about the baby in mommy's tummy and although I am not certain how much he understands, I think it is important for him to be involved in the process. I likewise will be having my 3rd c-section (and 5th abdominal surgery in 6 1/2 years) so I make sure that my mom takes over while the kids are there, but have your mom bring her to hospital right away. Let her see the baby there and then when she comes home she won't be surprised. I know it is hard to think about juggling everyone's needs, but I assure you that my oldest transitioned very well. They like to "help" and there are certainly things that they can do - like bringing mommy a diaper, etc. Good luck and CONGRATS!

You have good advice from the posters. Just make sure that any one coming to see the new baby brings the older sister a gift of her own so that she does not feel left out of all the new things with the baby. Spend as much time as possible with her as baby will sleep a lot in the beginning. Let her bring a diaper to you to "help" change baby brother. Let her see him and let her look at him good and have her sit down comfortably and put baby brother in her lap so that she can really see him. (These two will be in each others life for a very long time and it should be a happy bond.) You can refer to her as big sister or something that she can connect with and start to understand. Just have help in the first 6 weeks with both to get your routine back to normal and enjoy them.

I am 20 years old and I have a 15 month old daughter and a 4 month old son. My daughter had to spend the first two nights at my mom's when we brought our son home. After that she kind of adapted to the new "creature". She was real jealous at first, but she got over it in just a couple days. She is in love with her bubba now!

My son is 3 and I just had a little girl but what we did that seemed to help out alot is we got him a smaller baby doll. He will sometimes sit and feed his baby, while I feed mine :) I also bought some of the little toys so that he could do what I did (stroller, bath, etc) It seems to help. He sometimes tells us to Shhhhh cause his baby is sleeping its cute.
Hope that helps you some.