I know it’s super early and I do not want to get ahead of myself but as someone who has anxiety and likes to plan and think things through I was wondering if anyone has any advice on welcoming baby number 2.
If everything goes smoothly baby 2 will be due end of [name_f]May[/name_f] and my DS turns 2 end of [name_f]April[/name_f]. Any tips on helping prepare for number 2 or prepare number 1 for a sibling would be much appreciated.
Many thanks 
Our kids are very similarly distanced! [name_f]My[/name_f] oldest turned 2 a few months after we had our second. For us what helped the most was reading books and stories about families that had 2 kids.
Something that was helpful to me was as i was pregnant with number two I would imagine having two during everyday activities.
Examples like if i was at the supermarket with my 18month old i would imagine what i would have to do differently to fit a newborn in to the day. So I would think about using a carrier and who i would have to put in the car first ect.
[name_u]Or[/name_u] during bath or bed or meal times, I would daydream about different ways it would work to have a new baby fit in to the mix. And what i would do if i was changing a nappy, where would the other one be.
This really helped me prepare so when these situations popped up, the solutions i had considered were there ready to go when I was all sleep deprived with a fresh newborn and the pressure was on to figure these thins out. I was way off the mark for some things but it helped me to feel like I had a plan ready to go.
I would probably also recommend not attempting any big changes like moving from a cot to a bed or toilet training or dropping the dummy or bottle or starting child care around the time the new baby is due. One big change at a time.
Thank you it’s already helping just to have ideas on what works/doesn’t.
Roughly how long after baby 2 would big changes be ok?
I’m expecting ds to have some regressions which is totally fine but just wondering if anyone else experienced this?
Following as I’ll be in the same boat. [name_f]My[/name_f] son will be 2y4m when his sibling arrives in [name_f]May[/name_f] next year
You will know your child and how they are coping. Some changes are a big deal to some children and others don’t phase them.
We moved our eldest to a big bed when i was about 36 weeks pregnant and dropped the dummy about 25 weeks into the pregnancy and he was more than READY for both especially with the way he was climbing out of the cot.
It was no big deal at the time, however, once baby arrived he was devastated that the new baby was in ‘his’ cot and we luckily used the bassinet for the newborn for a while until he was ready to try big bed again. Although he remained very suspicious about it all. In hindsight, it would have been better to make that transition earlier. I think in our situation we moved beds too close to baby’s arrival.
The dummy caused no such drama and didn’t trigger him like the cot did. Perhaps enough time had passed that they no longer felt like his?
Congratulations!!
Thank your for all your advice and your time it is really helping me wrap my head around everything!