My last blog discussed difficulties siblings may have when a new child is adopted into their home. This blog will focus on the positive things siblings may experience.
My daughter arrived just before her first birthday. My son was almost three. He helped give his sister her first bottle at home. I believe he was actually the first person that she bonded with. She called him “ah-gee”, meaning baby, because the one other child in her foster home had been a younger baby.
A great advantage I found to having another child in the home was that it normalized things for the new child to see another child going through the same things. When we went to a playgroup or a checkup or left the kids with Grandma briefly, Meg could see that Patrick wasn’t freaking out, which I believe helped her to be less freaked out with new situations.
My kids were very attached to and protective of each other. Having been adopted as a toddler, Meg had a lot of separation anxiety. In fact, I’m not sure she would ever have made it out of my bed if we hadn’t been able to put her mattress on the floor of her brother’s room.
Later, when family illness and multiple doctors’ appointments made nursery school a part-time necessity, I looked for a mixed-age preschool where Meg could be with her brother. When she cried the first couple of days, Patrick told the teachers, “I know what to do!” and showed her a picture of me. When a child barely touched Meg in the line for the slide, Patrick yelled, “don’t push my sister!!” When another girl sat next to Patrick in a circle at a Sunday School function, two-year-old Meg literally lifted the girl and moved her over so she could sit by her brother. Even in spring, Meg still needed to sit by Patrick, but by the next fall she could handle being in the now-familiar preschool by herself.
Patrick took his big-brother role very seriously. In fact, he asked me “So, who did you get to be my big brother when I was a baby?…You didn’t? You mean I didn’t have one at all?” He thought we’d really cheated him.
Please see these related blogs:
Inviting Siblings to Share in the New Baby
Family Home Evening: Welcoming a New Baby