How Expectant Moms Can Help Their Kids Deal With The Upcoming Birth Of A New Sibling
If your children are still young, they might not have the easiest time reacting to you having a new baby on the way. Although it wouldn't be fair to say that all children will deal with it in a negative way, you should expect a fair amount of confusion on their part.
Active children are more likely to react adversely to the inevitable reduction in your energy and movement that comes from being pregnant. This will unnerve them and could drive them to be overly attached in a way that isn't beneficial to them or anyone else. Involving them in the process as much as possible - suggesting that they help set up their new siblings' rooms or devise games to play with them - can help in such situations.
Other children, who are either particularly talkative or respond mostly to visual stimuli, may respectively think that either your conversations about the new baby are intended to exclude them, or that the swelling in Mom's stomach is somehow painful or harmful.
As with active children who find the upcoming birth problematic, solve these problems by reacting in ways most appropriate to their mindsets. Talkative, auditory children should be encouraged to place their ear to your stomach and try to "hear" the new baby, or have them tell the baby stories. Visual children will be comforted by seeing pictures of how you were when you were pregnant with them, so they are reassured that everything is perfectly normal.
What this all boils down to is that your kids want to be included in this process, as is true of most things involving children in their formative years. As long as you facilitate that in the way that's best suited to their needs, you shouldn't have anything to worry about.
Have you noticed your children acting strangely since you became pregnant?
