I had a nagging fear throughout the last months of my pregnancy. When I was about seven and a half months pregnant, my sister-in-law, who is an amazing mother of nine, got suddenly very ill. She was in the ICU for a few weeks, and when she came home she had a long recovery. I was extremely worried about her and her family, and also scrambling to find child care for Ace, since it was planned that he would stay there when I was in the hospital giving birth. When I was researching options for childcare, I was horrified to learn just how big of an issue this can be for some families.

I am forever grateful for all of our family members who came together to make sure our oldest baby was well taken care of. At the last moment, my mom was able to fly out for Christmas and a few days beyond, and I was induced on the 26th.  While I was looking for options though, I quickly understood that many families don’t have this privilege. That sometimes partners have to miss a birth because there is no one else to care for the older kids, and hospitals don’t always allow young people into the room. That sometimes women spend their entire pregnancies worrying about what their older kids will do when they are in labor, or even how to handle prenatal care at offices where older kids aren’t welcome. That if a hospital has a “no children” policy (which can even happen at a child-friendly hospital during flu season) and a laboring mom does bring her children, social services may be called, and the children may go into care until mom is released. The stress this situation can cause is astounding. There are so many things that can prevent a family from having a solid plan for older children, and in my privilege, I had never thought about how hard this situation could be.

When it came down to it, I really did have so many options available to me. My closest family members may have been out of commission, but I still had other family that would drop everything and fly over if I needed them. I could have hired and paid for an overnight babysitter to watch Ace. I could have asked close friends of ours to take him for a few days. I could have hired a sibling doula (yes, that’s a thing!) to care for him during labor and delivery. This isn’t the reality for some pregnant women, and my heart breaks for them.

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The hardest part is, there is no one-size-fits-all solution to this problem. I’ve noticed more and more doulas offering discounted or free sibling doula services, and I’ve thought about offering the same. Many hospitals are now child friendly, and will allow older kids into the labor and delivery rooms as long as they have another adult present. I hope that in the future even more options will be available, especially for those who can’t afford to pay for several days of care.

Lou arrived two weeks late, which actually made family childcare for her work out! Lou arrived two weeks late, which actually made family childcare work in this situation!

What did you plan to do with your older children when giving birth to a new sibling? Did those plans work out?