A few weeks ago, I wrote about how Dylan was going through some tough adjustments as he became a big brother. Now that Blake is almost seven weeks old, we have all had a chance to get used to the way our family is now and things are settling down a bit. I am proud of how far Dylan has come in the past few weeks as far as understanding and working through his feelings about the experience.
One thing that I am very happy about is that he no longer thinks that I am going to go away and leave him. My hospital stay in connection with Blake’s arrival was five days, and to Dylan it must have felt like eternity. He was in the care of loving relatives for the first night and with my husband the rest of the time, but he clearly felt that I had abandoned him and was very vocal about it. Over the past three weeks, I have had relatives care for him once a week for a few hours while I attend to work commitments. He had a tough time at first, but his Auntie and Grandpa are kind and loving and he has fun with them. More importantly, my brief absences have illustrated an important point – Mommy goes away sometimes but she always comes back.
Dylan is also much less jealous of Blake than he was at first. I have focused on emphasizing how much I enjoy doing big boy things with Dylan while Blake sleeps. It is important to me that having a little one around does not restrict Dylan’s activities so I have been using tools like baby slings, baby carriers, and our jogging stroller to keep Blake close to me while doing fun stuff with Dylan like playing in the yard and walking to town to go to the playground. At bedtime, I lay Blake in his own bed and focus on reading to Dylan. Even if Blake cries and I have to feed him, I do so while reading to Dylan. It has taken a few weeks but Dylan seems to understand that having a little brother changes things, but it’s not so bad.