Hello! I have 2 wonderful girls, who are 5 and 4. We just found out last weekend that we are having number 3 next spring! My husband and I are excited and we want the girls to share in our joy, but I am wondering how and when to tell them? It's still early, but obviously I will be going to the doctor (a lot prob since I have a thyroid disease that will have to be monitored) and we'll be getting "stuff" as we go along. Any thoughts greatly appreciated! TIA!
I had my second in June of this year. When I posed that question to my OB he said to wait until I was 20wks then definitely things were safe by then and less time you have to wait for questions. We ended up telling our 4.5 year old on Christmas morning and was then able to bring her to the US when we found out what it was. Best of luck!
first of all CONGRATS! :) how far along are you? I would personally try to wait until atleast the 1st trimester was over... Not trying to jinx you, but have had a bad experiance with a misscarriage, and its not easy explaining to ppl that there is no baby anymore, let alone small children, but again im not trying to say anything bad would happen to your baby.. please dont take it that way... im sure the girls will be super excited however!!
We waited until about 12 weeks when I was pregnant with my second (my oldest was 2 1/2 at the time). THen we let our daughter announce to family that she was going to be a big sister. Everyone was like "what did she just say?" She was so proud to be part of the announcement.
Have a family party to Celebrate the news with them and show how excited and happy you all are. Get them books on haivng a new baby (little citter etc) so they can read it.
get them the I am the Big Sister shirts all of those thinsg, but address your younger ones worries if she has any
It depends on how observant your kids are -- when I was pregnant with my third, my first guessed almost immediately -- he had seen me with morning sickness with my second and when I was sick 3 times in 2 days about 2 or 3 weeks along, he came up to me and asked me excitedly if I was pregnant again, and as I will not lie to my kids, I told him yes. A 7 year old is not good at keeping secrets like that, so we told his younger sister too. I think given a choice, we would have waited 'til the end of the first trimester, but you'll need to play it by ear. For instance, if you do get a lot of morning sickness or something like that, it might worry your kid a lot if you don't tell them. When pregnant with my second, I was sick so much that my first asked if I was dying, so we told him right then why I was sick. It was close to the end of the first trimester, but not quite there.
Hi K.,
Congratulations! I think every family does things a bit differently when it comes to telling the siblings, but we always waited until I was into the second trimester to tell our older children, just to be sure. With our last baby, it was a bit tricky trying to monitor the discussions that went on around them, because they were a bit older, so we had to make sure that when we told family the news, we prefaced it with, "The girls don't know this yet, but..." or told them when the girls weren't around. It always worked well for us. 9 months is a long time for a 5-year-old to wait, so if they don't find out until 4 or 5 months along, it's a bit easier for everyone!
Best of luck!
E.
