- Say the word "baby" a lot.
- Teach him to walk through the grocery store and stay next to Mommy.
- Find things that entertain him in the grocery store...like the stickers from apples and oranges. (When the cashier looks for the produce number, just look on his elbow or knee.)
- Teach him to walk through a parking lot and stay next to Mommy.
- Kick him out of his room, but give him cool dinosaur curtains.
- Teach him to sleep in a bed without bars.
- Say "baby!" whenever you see one.
- Make him walk when he'd rather be carried.
- Teach gentleness. Being gentle with Mommy's big belly is good practice for being gentle with a baby.
- Encourage daddy time.
- Show him lots of pictures of babies (and reinforce the word "baby"). One option is to read Baby Baby by Vicky Ceelen.
- Continue to practice leaving him in safe, secure environments without Mommy.
- Make him go down slides by himself at the playground. (Not that I could fit in the tunnel slide at the moment. It was hard enough last summer!)
- Teach him the "Happy Birthday" song.
- Plan to do special events now that will be more difficult later. (For example, drive to a zoo several hours away only to find it closed for renovations. Spend the day with Grandpa and Grandma instead. Realize he had just as much fun hopping with his grandpa and grandma along the Mississippi as he would have had at the zoo trying to get a sleepy lion to roar.)
- Practice sharing toys at play group. Then continue to teach gentleness, so that when he shares with the babies at play group, he doesn't hit them with the toy.
What am I missing? What else should I be working on in the next few weeks?
3 comments:
Wow. I think I only did half of those things with arlene. But girls probably are a little more instinctual with what to do with a baby. Some people get a baby doll with a blanket or bed for the older sibling. My mom said that she did that for my older brother, and he really liked it and would talk to it and treat it very carefully. Then when I was born, he didn't play with it anymore.
I found "Welcoming your second baby" by Vicki Lansky fairly helpful...very easy/quick read. Just a few helpful hints in there...like putting the crib mattress in the lowest position even when the baby is tiny to make it tougher for the big sibling to crawl in with the baby! Not sure if you've got time to read it...but it was a fun read. Trying to remember my other take-aways from it...hmmm...
Just savor your these "quiet" days with your little cutie! So excited for you, Deborah!
You should consider replacing "baby" with "half-pint." ;)
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