Children at the Birth of a Sibling
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Karen Plomp, Mom of Five, Shares Their Family's Experiences
Written after the First Four Children's Births
I have thought about this a lot and always felt more comfortable not having the siblings attend the birth. But it was a hard decision every time.
Cees was 21mo when Timmy was born, and I considered letting him attend. But my labor with Cees had been very hard and LOUD and I thought that might be scary for him. Also, I didn't really want to deal with a toddler while concentrating on my labor. I knew we could have someone there especially for him, but I also knew that he still might have wanted ME all the time, when I would not be up to it.
So when I went into labor, it was night and he slept through most of it. Then in the morning, when I woke up, I called one of my friends and she came over and picked him up and he played there with her little boy, while Timmy was born.
With Tara's birth, I considered it again. But Tim is extremely high need and can easily totally lose it, and I knew I didn't want to deal with his behavior during my labor. I had one of the neighbors on call, who would come over and get the boys if needed. But she was born at night, and the boys slept right through it, so that was very easy! ;-)
With Jane's birth, the boys slept over at a neighbor's house. Tara was at home and asleep. Another neighbor was on call for her and she would either take care of her in our house, or take her with her, depending on how things went. But we didn't even need her. Tara woke up about an hour after the birth, I think, and could admire her new sister. But this time, we got the birth on video, so the boys and Tara watched it later. Both of them ask for this tape once in a while, and I am glad that they are still able to see the birth, even while they were not there at that time. And I like to watch it myself too :-)
Next time, I still don't know. Since Jane's birth was so easy and
short, I might have siblings present this time. But I just don't know yet. And it is not something I really have to worry about either, since I am not even pregnant or fertile yet :-)
I think it would be great to have the older kids present at birth, and a wonderful experience for them generally. I just wasn't up to it myself. I think, if we would do it, we would have one or two people helping who would be totally dedicated to the kids and who could take them with them if things did not work out. Or could take care of them if we needed to transfer to the hospital.
Karen wrote this after her fifth child's birth.
With the birth of my fifth kid, we had the siblings present for the first time. Their ages then were 7yo, 5yo, 2.5yo and 1.5yo. We prepared them by reading books, talking about it and watching the birth video of Jane's (#4) birth. I remember my then 2yo being totally amazed the first time she saw the video. 'The baby is naked!!!' I think she must have had a mental image of a baby being born totally clothed :-)
We had one person here to take care of the kids during the birth, so that I didn't need to do that. It was a longer birth this time, and I actually labored for quite a long time with the kids downstairs and did my things. When things got going more intensely, I moved upstairs while the kids played downstairs. After a while we filled the tub and the kids were very interested in that of course. So when I just got into the tub, they were all there, but things lost their appeal very soon when nothing notable (to them) happened, so they went away again.
They were in and out, sometimes distracting, sometimes nice and quiet.
The most distracting part was when my 1yo first started touching the
water in the pool with one finger, then with her whole hand, then with
her whole arm, followed by almost falling in!! :-)
Things got quite loud and intense in the end, and although the older boys did not like the screaming, they really liked it to see how their baby sister came out! It was a very positive experience for them, I am glad we decided to let them attend. I think the best way to tell that they liked it, is that they have already asked to be at the next birth. :-)
For myself, I found it sometimes quite distracting to have them there,
but I also enjoyed having them. It was fun to watch them being
fascinated by the whole thing. And it was nice to have them greet the
new baby immediately. I think the positive aspects definitely
outweighed the negative ones. I would do it again next time!
Tara (then 2yo) was the one of our kids, who seemed to have been most
in awe of attending Kate's birth. She still talks about it, almost a
year later, and is convinced she has two babies in her own belly, but
they are not going to come out yet. She likes watching the video of Kate's birth and Jane's birth too. I thought she might have been too little to appreciate all the things around the birth, but she really surprised me!
A funny thing that happened a month or so later. The birth of Kate
came up in conversations pretty regularly and some day at dinner, they
started to wonder about how exactly the baby got conceived. The boys
know about sperm and the egg and how they get together to form a baby,
but now were wondering exactly HOW daddy got the sperm into mama... So
we did some explaining and they expressed an interest in watching the
proceedings..... We politely refused that idea :-), but the 5yo kept
insisting. 'But if I am really, really quite, can I watch then?
Please?'
Sorry, somehow liked siblings attending the birth of a new baby, but NOT the conception! *LOL*
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Karen Plomp, mom to Cees (Nov 5, 91), Tim (Aug 14, 93), Tara (June 11, 96), Jane (July 21, 97) and Kate (March 25, 99)
http://www.plomp.com/homepage.html
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Copyright 2000 by Karen Plomp
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