When venturing into our parental journey, our hope was always to have our second child when our first was around two years old. Once Roman reached 6 months, I secretly started fantasizing about having another much sooner. Strangely enough, before that 6 month point I had trouble imagining having another at all. I wasn’t traumatized by my experience with Roman; I was just so intensely attached to him that having another baby felt like a betrayal of some sort.
At my last ob appointment, while I was buckling Roman into his stroller to leave, my doctor said, “Aren’t you a little sad, he’s still just a baby?”
I’m not sad, so apparently I went from one extreme to the other. I feel happy for my children that they will have each other through all their years. I daydream about them playing together, about family dance parties and adventures. (I feel it is important to document this now, so my future self can look back and laugh when they are pulling each others hair out.)
After finding out I was pregnant with our second baby I was so hungry for feedback on what to expect with this 18 month age gap. Every mother I encountered at the playground with a toddler and an infant was greeted with the ever popular, “how old are they?” followed by a slew of more questions if it turned out they were in fact “two under two.” I quickly got the impression that it isn’t something people like to talk about, as it seems they’ve learned already that when it comes to siblings it all depends on the individual children and every age gap has its perks and drawbacks through different phases.
I was also just so curious what to expect of my son as an 18 month old. How much will he understand; how well will he be able to express himself; what milestones and behavior bumps will he be experiencing? After some observation of 18 month olds, I concluded there will be no predictability with this either. Roman recently experienced a long independent streak followed by an intensely clingy phase, suddenly exhibiting jealousy when he sees me holding another baby or hugging family members. I am completely clueless as to what the next 4 months might bring. Right now he hasn’t the slightest idea what is going on. We point to my belly and say, “Isn’t mamma’s belly getting big?” but he has no interest. I can picture him looking at his sister with sweet curiosity, the way I see him check out the other infants he’s encountered, but I can’t imagine how this will affect him, what he’ll think, and how long it will take him to understand.
I’ve encountered a lot of advice on how to prepare older toddlers for new siblings and have been working on collecting age appropriate advice for easing the transition for Roman as an 18 month old. Here’s what I have so far:
1. We bought him a baby doll to teach him to be gentle or “nice” — (a lesson we attempt frequently in general when he’s being “rough” and playfully smacking us.) We thought maybe he’d love the doll, point to it and say “baby,” carry it around, cuddle it… the experiment backfired. Either he’s totally creeped out by dolls or he knows exactly what is going on and already resents the new baby because the only attention he’ll pay it is to steal its pacifier and push it away in disgust. So that’s my experience so far with that advice.
2. Establish a solid routine before the baby’s arrival to maintain consistency and a sense of security during a time of great change and confusion.
3. Have the baby in a bassinet, as opposed to our arms, when Roman meets her for the first time. After recent incidents of jealousy when catching me holding other babies, I think this is excellent advice.
4. Don’t ignore the older child when the new baby is getting attention. This is something I am not too worried about with Roman still at such an adorable and entertaining age himself, I imagine he will be stealing most of the attention away from his sister. However it is quite clear that attention is very important to him, so we will have to make sure to be sensitive to this.
5. Schedule daily alone time with each child. On a recent trip to visit family I noticed how happy Roman was when I took him in to bed to read stories and go to sleep. It seemed that after spending so much time in bigger groups he was excited to have alone time with me, so I made a mental note that this will be an important routine to establish when the new baby arrives.
6. Schedule help in the first 6 weeks to be sure there are always enough hands and eyes to care for both children during the initial transition. I also want to plan lots of fun outings for Roman with his dad and grandmothers throughout that time to make sure he is getting enough special attention.
7. Bring the baby “alive” for the older child. In other words, speak about the baby’s thoughts and feelings so they seem like more than a crying poop machine. For example, “your sister loves to watch you play, she thinks you’re so funny!” This is something that probably works better with older children, but could be put into practice with an 18 month old as well. I’ll just have to wait and see how much of an effect it has!
8. Give the toddler presents from the baby. Again, I’m not sure if this will register with an 18 month old, but it’s worth a try!
9. Wear the new baby around the house and on outings to make it easier to play with Roman and focus enough attention on him.
10. Establish better sleep behavior and complete major changes before the new babies arrival. Right now Roman co-sleeps, wrestling himself to sleep in bed with us after story time, sometimes for 5 minutes, sometimes for 2 hours. Three months before the baby is born we will be moving to a two bedroom home and plan to transition Roman to sleeping in his new room through the night with less struggle at bedtime. (This one is probably more for our own sanity, but also to ensure that he doesn’t associate the necessary changes with the new baby’s arrival.)
. . . . .
Any “baby bunching” bees out there with advice on bringing home a new baby to a young toddler? Recommendations on Do’s and Don’ts I should keep in mind?
pomegranate / 3565 posts
Mine are 20 months apart. Honestly, I just spoke to big brother a lot about the baby when I was pregnant. I didn’t buy any books or anything. I wasn’t sure it sunk in but it must have because he adores his little brother. From the 1st moment he met him, he gave him a kiss and looked at him with love. Actually he was very gentle from the start also. I had my mom to help in the beginning and that was wonderful. I do recommend that if possible.
The hardest part has been your #10. This is us exactly. Little brother sleeps in his crib but big brother is in our bed. I initially tried to transition him to a toddler bed in my 2nd trimester but that didn’t work. The 1st month was hard but it’s been getting easier.
hostess / cantaloupe / 6486 posts
My babies will be 19 months apart (I’m due in April) & I’m nervous & excited. When I was pregnant with LO 1 I was a nanny to a little girl who happens to be 19 months older than my LO & she could give my belly kisses & hugs & point & say baby. I’m hoping my LO will have at least that same general amount.of understanding as well!
blogger / cherry / 204 posts
@Mamasig: It makes me so happy to hear how much he loved the new baby! I’m so curious to see how our sleep transition attempts go, I imagine we could definitely end up in the same situation!
blogger / cherry / 204 posts
@Mrs. Sunshine: oh thats interesting, I hope my son will start to understand that well too, we’ll have to start pushing the belly thing a little more! Good luck to you!
nectarine / 2631 posts
Ours will be 20 months apart- and we have already started doing some of these things!
guest
We’re planning to go for number 2 towards the end of the year, so ours will be about 18 or so months apart. This is a great read and I’m interested to see how Roman does with the new baby
kiwi / 645 posts
We have a 19- month age gap and overall LO #1 seems to really loves the baby (he is almost 7-weeks old). She kisses him constantly and tells everyone “shhhh” when he is sleeping (although this rule of course doesn’t apply to her). She had a sleep regression on and off for the past couple of weeks…not sure if it’s baby related or her age. She is a rock star sleeper (minus a couple age related regression before 1) so this surprised us the most so far. She also at times has been more clingy with me and cries if I leave to run an errand (she had never done this before). Having two this close in age is a lot to handle, but I’m guessing it will seem a lot easier once the newborn/sleep deprivation stage is over. Our toddler is wayyyy more work than our newborn, and I no longer feel guilty that she isn’t getting enough attention (I worried about this when I was pregnant)! If anything I feel guilty that our little guy doesn’t get nearly as much attention as she had from the get go! All of that being said, I wouldn’t change it for the world. I’m so happy they have each other as siblings. Best of luck!
guest
Our boys are 19 months apart and I couldn’t be happier. I feel as though my older son adjusted really easily to the new baby and by the last 3-4 months of my pregnancy showed a lot of affection to the baby in my belly. It was tricky in the beginning but I don’t think the transition from 1 to 2 is ever easy. Now that my younger son is almost 2 and the older is 3.5 things are still good. They really genuinely love each other and the sibling rivalry/jealousy is totally at the normal end of the spectrum. I actually think that if we were to have another (even if we began trying soon) that they would be TOO far apart (just over 2.5 years) which I know sounds crazy but I loved the close age gap!
GOLD / apricot / 341 posts
We had 3 children in 40 months: 19 months between the first two and then 21 months between the second and third. Both times the children have handled the arrival of a new sibling easily – I think that is an advantage of having them close together. But I will also chime in on the “each child is different choir” because that is definitely my experience. I will say that although the closeness in age makes life a little intense (the first six months with 2 kids were rough on all of us), I think it is a great gift to have siblings so close to your age. We wouldn’t change a thing! Good luck with this exciting transition!!
guest
Mine are very best friends @ 15 months apart and it served me well they loved to play together when #3 surprised us when they were still 2 & 1! The first 8 weeks of any baby can be a blur but with enough helping hands your little one will soon be your #1 helper. It’s amazing what an 18 month is capable of once Mommy’s arms are full with another. It’s precious to see them become your #1 helper! Congrats!
blogger / cherry / 204 posts
@Mrs. M: thank you! It makes me so happy to hear about such loving, welcoming older siblings!
blogger / cherry / 204 posts
@Mini Piccolini: Thank you! So happy to hear that!
guest
Hi there, I know I’m a little late on commenting on your blog. I’ve just discovered I too will be having my second baby when my first is 18 months and wanted to say thank you for such an informative and well written article to help subside my guilt and fears about having two so close. I must say however, that your OB should be ashamed of his/her comment about you being sad that your first was still a baby, that made me sad to read and was floored by the unprofessional comment made by a doctor! Did you find you felt guilt when you found out you were pregnant in regards to not having enough ‘ you’ time with number one? Thanks and sorry again for being so late in the game!!