Your tummy is expanding and your toddlers, along with the other kids already ruling the roost, are excited to meet the brand new addition to the family. Consider getting your kids involved early on in, and throughout, your forty-week journey into motherhood. Doing so will enhance your experience as you share your pregnancy with the kids already in your life.
Start by showing them their own ultrasound images and reading to them from the pregnancy journal or baby book/album that you kept for them. Then, take your children along with you to an ultrasound (if you have several kids, maybe taking turns visiting the doctor’s office with Mom is the way to go – so your family does not overtake the waiting room!).
My little one was by our side during our first ultrasound with baby #2 and she was as excited as Mom and Dad to see her new sibling lounging inside her Mommy’s belly. She was laughing hysterically while he or she was kicking back with his legs elevated and his hands straight up in the non-air, seemingly waving to us. It was an experience that, now, I couldn’t ever imagine not having with my daughter.
Because some kids have a difficult time adjusting to a new baby being in the house, my wife and I agreed that by getting our daughter involved and excited from the get-go, we would decrease the probability of her having any adjustment issues. Only time will tell if our girl’s early and continued interest in the pregnancy will indeed help her after the delivery, when she is no longer an only child, but one thing is for sure: It is a heck of a lot of fun for us as a family to be talking, reading and learning about the baby growing, stretching, eating in the womb and eventually coming out to meet us!
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