A quick Google search of how to prepare young children for the arrival of a sibling gets all sorts of results.
But how about a search for preparing your child for the arrival of a foster sibling?
I think I heard crickets chirping.
A little 1-month-old baby girl arrived in our home last week, and we did the best we could to prepare our 23-month-old toddler of her arrival. The world of foster children tends to move very quickly, but we knew for some time that we’d take in another child this summer.
Our son has done quite well.
Other families in similar situations wrote about how their 2-year-olds didn’t have the ability to understand the situation. Older children, they said, asked questions and tried to comprehend who this little person is who will come stay with the rest of the family.
On the day the baby arrived, our son asked to be held more often than he normally asks. My wife and I encouraged him to touch the baby nicely, kiss her and call her name.
It worked.
Here are some tips from whattoexpect.com on preparing an older child for an arrival (this applies for both biological and foster babies):
-- Help your child sort out his toys and designate which ones will be off-limits to the baby (this gives your child feelings of special privileges).
-- Involve your child in the preparation of the new arrival.
-- Set up plenty of activities for your child when the baby arrives, especially independent ones while you’re feeding or rocking the baby.
-- Level with your child. The baby needs to be touched gently and enjoys being kissed and talked to. Our son picked up the baby’s name very quickly.
How’s our new baby responding? It seems like she enjoys watching our son play most of all.
Funny how it works out like that.
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