Announcing a Second Pregnancy

My Cousin just announced that she is preg with her second... She wrote on her daughter's diaper on the front in big bold letters "I am going to be a BIG sister." and then she asked her mother in law to change her diaper. She did that for both sides of the family. It was really funny.

See if you can find a t-shirt that says "I'm the big brother". When he asks why he's getting that, tell him.

Congratulations!

We told our almost 4 yr old daughter first and let her be the one to tell our family. We weren't sure how she would handle it but when we told her "Mommy has a baby growing in her belly and you're going to be a big sister" she jumped up & down and shouted "yeah, we're going to have a baby" It was priceless. She was so cute & proud telling our family. On one occasion we went to my mom & dad-in-laws about 1 hr away and she could hardly contain herself, when we arrived Papa was outside and she was shouting it out the window :-)
We shared our news at 8 weeks which was as long as I could hold it in for :-) Good luck & enjoy your new blessing on the way!

First of all congratulations - children are the best. I would high rec. that you wait 3 months to tell. You never know what can happen.

To announce my second child I had my youngest wear a shirt that said big brother to be (I made it out of iron on letters). He wore it under another nice shirt and at dinner I told him to take it off so he did not mess up his nice shirt. It took a few minutes but the whole family got it and it was great.

Enjoy your growing family:)

M.--

Your enthusiasm is contagious! Congratulations for you and your family. I'll share with you a technique I used to announce my third (surprise) pregnancy with my husband and two sons (aged 2.5 and 4 at the time).

I got a white t-shirt that fit my 2.5 year old son, Paul, and painted on it: "Now I'M the big brother!"

I had Paul wear it, and he thought it was great, but he didn't get what it meant. He found it handy to taunt his big brother, but that's about it. Then when Dad got home from work, I asked him to take a look at Paul's t-shirt. He did, but he didn't get it at all. So then I put the pregnancy test on the counter. BINGO! Lightbulb clicked on. That moment was priceless. And yes, we told the children a few weeks later, once we had been to our first doctor's visit.

Best of luck to you!

L.

Hi, congrats! We're due with our second this summer and our son turned 3 in March. We didn't tell him until I was 8-9 weeks along, and he didn't really get it. He's understanding it much more now as my belly is growing and he can feel the baby! I got a "big brother" t-shirt and put it on him, then did a little photo shoot with him. We picked the best picture and then sent out a little announcement to family and friends, letting our son "announce" it to them and I put my due date on the card. We have a lot of family/friends out of town, so that worked well. They loved it! Hope all goes well!

Hi M.,

I had 2 kids and didn't get pregnant again for another 5 years. First ones are 22months apart. My family had no idea we would have any more children. Anyway, I came up with the crazy idea to make a small scrapbook of my 2 boys for both sides of the family and at the end of the book I put in "And coming in 2002" and then I had all kinds of baby stuff in pink and blue. It was around Christmas time so everyone was together and I just about blew then away. It was a great moment.I never even scrapbooked before, but it did turn out great. They talk about it to this day and she will be 6 years old. Good Luck and best of luck with a wonderful pregnancy.

C.

Hi M.,

First of all CONGRATULATIONS!!!! It is so exciting to hear about new babies. My 2 cents worth is to wait to tell your son. I'm not trying to be a downer and I'm one of the most positive people I know!! I had a miscarriage before my first son was born and then had two healthy boys, I never thought I would have another miscarriage after that. But in our experience we told my 4yo and 8yo that they were going to be big brothers at 5 weeks and they both understood the baby concept, but 3 weeks later I had to tell them that we lost the baby and they were both pretty devastated. They had a hard time understanding how the baby could be there and then not. So, we had to really explain how the body works when a miscarriage happens. That was extremely hard to tell the kids. I would really hate that someone else would have to go through that with there children. I hope that all goes brilliantly with your pregnancy and again CONGRATULATIONS!!

C. M

Hi M., I worked with someone who had, had 3 miscarriages. When she finally got passed the stage where she would be out of danger, she frames the ultra sound and gave it to the parents. I thougght that was very special, as for your son I would show him pictures of babies with older siblings. Hope this give you some ideas and helped in any way good luck.

I asked a similar question to yours a couple of days ago and what I decided I was going to do is create a slide show on the computer with the pictures I have of my daughter and at then end have one of slides announce that number two is on the way or have a picture of my daughter holding a baby and then have it say by ??-??-???? it will be a real baby something like that. I have not thought it all the way through as I am not even pregnant yet.
I have tons and tons of pictures of my daughter on my computer and making stuff like that is a joy to me so if it's something you like to do feel free to use the idea.

First of all, CONGRATULATIONS!!! To be expecting again is WONDERFUL! :)
Do the parents live far away? I was just thinking that I'd send a homemade puzzle to them, with the message on it that they were going to be grandparents again! Maybe find a picture you can write on, and cut it up. Or send a special card e-mail with music to them at their places of work. Have parents over for tea and cookies. Make letter cookies, and spell "Baby on the way...." or something.
As far as your son goes, maybe while waiting to tell him, (my son is 4 this next week, and WOULD get it, but we have a history of miscarriage, so no telling right away.) get library books out about a new baby, being a big brother, etc. Just to get the idea in his head for now. If you don't think you want to wait to tell him, just start with the book, and tell him.
J.

When we found out we were expecting our 2nd I made a shirt for our daughter to wear: it said...I'm the BIG sister!! We just put it on her and let her walk out in front of our relatives-their reactions after reading it were priceless!! Some family members had the silly comments like "who's big sister are you??" not understanding exactly what we were trying to convey!! It was REALLY fun and cute. You could buy your son the book "i'm the big brother" and give it to him as the way you'd tell him!!! Good luck and have fun!!1

Congrats on your second pregnancy! :) My daughter was 17 months when we found out we were pregnant with our second. She (now at 21) months doesn't have any idea about the baby but we keep talking about it. I'm sure she'll get it soon.

To announce the pregnancy I purchased iron on letters from Hobby Lobby. They have really cute ones there and they are pretty inexpensive. I took one of my daughter's long sleeved onesies and ironed "Big Sister" on the front and "Nov 2008" on the back (that is when I'm due). She wore it over to both my parents and my husbands parent's house. The reaction was excellent. I made sure to have the video camera discretely taping. It was great when both of our moms took her jacket off to find our announcement underneath! I hope you're pregnancy is wonderful!

A good idea I heard about (in an interview with Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt) for introducing older siblings to the an up-coming younger sibling is to throw a Sibling Party. Maybe you could do this for your extended family, too.

dana

Hi M.,
Congratulations! What a great time of life! There are internet sites that sell cute baby shirts, like BABY with an arrow downward, etc. That might be a fun way to announce to family at your next gathering. Also the following link has very cute announcements that you mail through the post office: http://www.carrieskiddiecloset.com/store/WsDefault.asp

RE: telling your son. Unless you know of some reason that the pregnancy might reach full term, I think its great to tell your son. You have only a short amount of time to share this special time with him and baby in utero!!! Get the bonding with big brother going!! Also, as a side note, I teach HypnoBirthing chilbirth education. If you are interested in a gentle birthing method go to www.YourPeacefulBirthing.com I used that method to birth both of my girls and it ROCKED!!!!!
Good Luck,
J.

At 3 he may not even understand what it means until you start showing more... :-)
We always refered to our second as #2 when talking around our oldest until we told her about him coming...
Congrats !!!!

Congratulations! We personally waited 2-3 months before telling family and siblings, but that has to be a personal choice. As for how to tell family, with our first one we recorded the heartbeat at the doctor's office and told our family we had something for them to listen to. We played it back for them and they eventually guessed it. With our second we put a "I'm the big sister" shirt on her and let her walk around until someone noticed. With our third, we had our oldest (almost 4 at the time) tell family the news that mommy had a baby in her tummy. With our fourth we took the ultrasound pictures and mixed them into some pictures we had taken of the girls and let them look through them until they saw it. Just some ideas for you, have fun with it and good luck!

M.,

My husband and I decided to wait for 2 months before we told family and friends. We had a horrible time last year after I miscarried with family and friends coming up to me asking me how my pregnancy was going and when the baby was due. I let family know this time with a poem that I wrote (from the baby) and a copy of the ultrasound at 8 weeks. Just use your best judgement when to tell your son and family. My own son (2 1/2 yrs old) didn't understand what was going on until I started to show (I am currently 30 weeks along). J.

our daughter was 3 when we found out we were pregnant. we waited untill we had the very first ultra sound, the one you get around 8 weeks or so. we handed her the picture and asked her what she thought it was, it was very cute she thought it was a picture of a raccoon.
we always waited to tell everyone untill we had the first ultra sound. and again with hte grandparents we told them we had something for them and made them come over and handed them the pic for them to figure it out.

I bought sweatshirts for the grandparents. Angels for my mom, lighthouses for my dad. Under each a/l had a grandchilds name. I put an extra angel/lighthouse on each sweathsirt with no name. When they opened them it took them a minute to realize there was a blank one but they figured it out. It was fun and the whole family thought it was a great way to tell them we were expecting. Good luck and congratulations!

my daughter is almost 3, I put a "i'm the big sister" shirt on her to tell everyone... including my husband. So she knew first. I don't think it hurt her one bit. toys r us always has the shirts.

you could buy your son and "I'm the Big Brother" shirt and tell him that way, and then take a pic of him wearing the shirt and email the pic to people. That's kind of what we did, I made a shirt for DS that said that and took a picture of him wearing it and we used that pic for our christmas cards and that's how we told everyone. Actually, I told my mom by emailing links of some maternity tops that I wanted her to get me for christmas, she emailed me back "are you trying to tell me something?"

Or you could email people a birthday present idea for your son since his bday is coming up, to a link of a Big Brother book that he might want.

M.,
My oldest daughter, who was announcing the pregnancy of our first grandson wrapped up a Christmas ornament "for grandparents". When we opened it up we were shocked because we didn't know they were trying. Now this was in the fall and don't know whether you could find an ornament but check out the Hallmark stores they might have something.

Good luck
M.

With our first (you could do this with any though), we were going to dinner at Mom's house. We offered to bring the dessert. I had a cake made with a stork on it and the words "we're expecting". The cake was in the box until it was time for desert. We pulled it out and didn't say anything, waiting for everyone to look down and realize what the cake said.

Our son and daughter-in-law announced their second pregnancy in a cute way.

The family (both sets of parents) were gathered for our grandson's first birthday. At Sunday brunch each parent was given a thank you card for gifts given the day before at the official birthday party. Inside the card was a photo of our grandson wearing a tee shirt that said "I'm going to be a big brother." It was nice that both sets of parents learned the news at the same time. Apparently there is a website where you can order tee shirts with your own sayings, which is pretty cool.

I always waited a bit to announce my pregnancies just to be sure that everything was okay, but I definitely would tell your son prior to informing the rest of the family just so you can answer any of his questions in private. Through your art you can also illustrate for him how your appearance will change over the next nine months and maybe he can color pictures of himself helping with his new brother or sister.

A little about me:
I am a youthful sixty year old mother of three (35, 32, 21) and grandmother of one with one on the way.