New baby

Congratulations! Please do not worry about all that. Yes, there may be developments but overall think of what a great thing you have done for her! Now she will have a sister for the rest of her life! What a great gift.

Congratulations on your pregnancy. My toddler son was born in May 2007 and my baby daughter was born in June 2009. I had a home birth at the end of June but after it I lost a lot of blood. I was taken into hospital for four nights. When I came home I was very weak. My toddler son was really jealous his baby sister. He used to have a vocabulary of about twenty words then he could say just three words. He cried when anyone ignored him and talked to my baby girl. My baby daughter is now almost twelve weeks old. There is still much jealousy but I think my toddler son is starting to tolerate his sister more now. If was terrible when I took my children to stay and play the first time after I had my baby girl. Now things are back to normal and he plays happily there. I think that your daughter at eighteen months will be fine with her baby sister. I suggest giving your older girl some new games and spend quality time with her. I think it would help if you included her with caring for your new baby. Like she could pass you over a sleep suit for example. It might take a month or so for your toddler to fully get used to having her baby sister. I am sure all will go well given the age difference. Good luck.

When I had my now 8 year old son, my oldest was only 3. He absolutely loved being a big brother and never once that I can recall got angry at the new baby. When I had my daughter, my now 8 year old was only 18 months old and he really tried hard to help with her. There were a couple of mishaps though. For example, one time, he tried to pick her up and feed her when I went into the kitchen to get the boys their dinner, and he accidentally dropped her, and another time, he tried to push her in her swing and ended up tipping it over with her in it. Thankfully, she was fine both times! I think that as long as you are telling your daughter that she will soon have a sister and allowing her to be a part of the preparations, she will be very accepting. Another thing that I found really helped out a lot was allowing the older sibligs to help do little things for the baby. For example, when I gave her a bath, I would ask them to hand me the soap or a towel. If I mafe a bottle, I would allow them to help by holding the bottle while I put in the formula. Little things like that really helped. One very important thing I learned was to be sure that I still held the littler kids on my lap both with the baby and on their own. AS long as they knew that they were just as special and just as important, they did just fine.