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Like all new additions to the family, Caitlin’s been the only target of attention so far from all our family members. Even on my side where Caitlin is the 14th of her generation, since the gap is about 12 years to her nearest cousin she has still been enjoying the attention from her aunts & my parents; it’s like reliving the joy of their kids all over again, they say. And, since Caitlin is the first of her generation on Mummee’s side of the family, you can pretty much expect to more than double the attention she gets.
So, now that Mummee’s due in mid-January with Caitlin’s baby-brother, how do parents prepare a child such as Caitlin for his impending arrival?
One of the adorable traits about Caitlin is her fascination with humans of similar or smaller sizes than her. Whenever she is out & she sees another toddler, or a baby, or a stroller, she insists to get close to them to greet them or just watch what they do. It’s all well & cute until she actually wants to touch / pat them that the parents of the other kids start giving us the death stare Is your kid going to infect some contagious parasitic disease to mine?? Is she?? IS SHE?? Often times Caitlin would really question why she is pulled away from them. Poor kid’s just curious, & may even be that she is exhibiting traits of the bigger-sister care-giving.
So, while it looks like that will work in our advantage, for months now Mummee & I have been telling her to be expecting a baby brother in the months to come.
In Asian language(s) there is a title to all of your relatives: Mum’s-2nd-younger-brother-uncle, eldest-sister-cousin-from-mum’s-side, dad’s-eldest-sister’s-husband; you get the picture. Luckily, the closer the relative, the simpler the title. Thus, for older sister, it’s jie-jie. It is also polite to address those slightly older as jie-jie (older-than-I girl), or ge-ge (older-than-I boy).. So sometimes asking the kiddies to say thank-you jie-jie when the older lady actually deserves to be called AUNTIE , can get you cheap brownie points.
Anyway.
So, since Caitlin’s been able to understand, we’ve been telling her to say thank-you jie-jie to salesgirls, or just girls obviously older than her. Somewhere from 1 to 3 yrs old, she’s gotten the concept.
So with baby brother’s impending arrival, we’ve been telling Caitlin that she is going to be a jie-jie herself. Lately, she’s been adamantly correcting everyone to start calling her jie-jie, even the adults.
“Caitlin, can you come and..”
“NO! It’s jie-jie! Call me jie-jie!”
She also knows that the baby is still growing in Mummee’s stomach. Lucky for us she hasn’t asked how it got there. Otherwise she would stop stroking / talking to Mummee’s stomach & start looking at Daddee something funny.
Since it’s Christmas, Grandma has recently taken Caitlin shopping for a baby doll. I came home from work to find her napping with her arm around it, & Grandma was telling me that Caitlin was the one who chose it & wouldn’t let her wrap it as a Christmas present. It’s one of those that cries & can be silenced by stuffing it with a pacifier.
Digression: Lucky for us:
- Caitlin hasn’t stolen private moments to suck on the pacifier, so we know for sure she’s weaned off it; though the pacifier is only as thick as a ballpoint pen refill (which mechanically shuts the bawling baby doll)
- She didn’t insist on one of those that requires feeding & then poops out the other end.
Grandma says that this is her way of also preparing Caitlin for baby-brother’s arrival, that while the attention will thus be shifted to the little man when he arrives, perhaps Caitlin can be kept busy doing similar stuff to her own baby.
I can see some rationale in that. In the few days Caitlin has been talking to the baby doll asking similar questions we have been asking her, & comforting it like I do: Nodding to it saying It’s okay, it’s awright & patting its chest, while I have been leaving her alone doing, err, blogging-related research (!)
But then again, it’s only been a few days. I will ask her soon if she can recall the whereabouts of previous favourite toys…
What do you do to prepare your first child for the arrival of the second & subsequent ones? As some of you are already parents of a few kids, I would be keen to hear from you.
PS: I am wondering, however, if she did choose the one that needs feeding & poops at the other end, whether Caitlin will still be a ever-willing jie-jie…
heh heh….no RELATED comment for you…but hope everything goes well! No insane jealousy or sibling rivalry to deal with!
hi!
i’m kinda new to your blog.
i did not consciously prepare my children for their coming sibling/s.
the only thing that i told them that they are going to be a jie jie, a big girl that needs to help mommy n daddy care for the baby.
telling them that it is their responsibility (kids just love to be treated like an adult. hehe) to care for the baby, to protect the baby and make baby happy.
my eldest is very protective over her younger siblings! my 2nd, is still in her own world (the middle child syndrome). needing more attention than the rest but is very caring towards the youngest but not her jie jie!
opps! too lenghty, like am blogging here instead of commenting.
We have been lucky in that we have had little sibling rivalry to speak of and Little Miss (toddler) truly adores Usurper (baby) and takes great pleasure in making her laugh.
However, since Christmas has been and gone, we have recently had a couple of incidents where the toddler wants to share the baby’s new playthings but isn’t quite so willing to share her own stuff.
This may be the beginning of 20 years of sibling battles