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Let me take a minute to talk about how we prepared Lloyd for Henry, because miraculously  it seems to have paid off.  Lloyd has been accepting of my need to nurse Henry and the fact that sometimes we have to hold the baby or take the baby upstairs to go down for a nap.   He doesn’t freak out when Henry cries and he’s eager to hold the baby before he goes to bed at night.

For one, we gave Lloyd these two books when I was about 5 months pregnant:  Waiting for Baby and My New Baby by Rachel Fuller.   They are primarily picture books, which worked great because we just made up our own text.  I’d say, “This is you and you’re the big brother.  That’s Henry, and there’s Mom and Dad” and read the stories with our family as the characters.  In the Waiting for Baby book it shows the Mom going to the doctor and getting checked out, which helped Lloyd understand all the times I had to leave for appointments while he stayed with Grammie.  We always talked about how someday I would have to go the hospital to squeeze Henry out of my belly.

I made sure that Lloyd understood the concepts of inside and outside (with dinosaurs in a cave), and sure enough he understood that there was a baby IN my tummy who would someday be OUT.   When I came home from the hospital he felt my tummy and I talked about how it felt squishy because it was empty: Henry was now outside of my belly.

Whenever we read books with siblings I’d make a big deal of pointing out the big brother and the baby brother.    When Lloyd had a big and a small version of a toy animal I switched from pretending it was a Daddy and a baby to a big brother and a little brother.

The “My New Baby” book is really great.  It shows the Mom breastfeeding the baby on at least two pages and it shows the baby crying on another page.  Lloyd learned about “Mommy milk” (sometimes called “Boob milk”) and luckily he was even able to witness a couple of our friends breastfeeding their babies.   When we looked at the page of the baby crying I’d say, “Sometimes Henry’s going to cry and it’s going to sound like this, ‘WAHHHHH!!'”  That would always make Lloyd laugh and usually we’d go into a rendition of “The Wheels on the Bus” where the babies go “Wah wah wah.”   Sometimes when we read the book I’d say, “Oh no, Henry’s crying.  Geeze when is he going to stop?  What do you think he wants?” and that would start another good discussion about Baby’s needs.

We always referred to the baby in my belly by his name, or as “your baby brother.”  We tried our best to never say “my baby” or “the baby.”

One last book we got that I think helped is “On The Night You Were Born” by Nancy Tillman.  We used this book to teach Lloyd about how he was “born” and what a wonderful day that was.   I’m not sure how much he understood, but the goal was to show him that once he was in my belly, and I squeezed him out, and then he was “born” and that was a wonderful thing.

And of course there was Baby Fred.   Lloyd never had a baby doll, so for Valentine’s day I gave him one and he carried it around and Greg and I taught him how to burp his baby.

For when I was in labor and needed to go to the hospital, we were lucky enough to have willing grandparents come to our house to stay with Lloyd.  I think it meant a lot that my mom and dad were up for living in our home and maintaining Lloyd’s everyday routine.  He was able to nap in his own crib at his normal time and he was with people who loved him to pieces and with whom he was completely comfortable.

When Lloyd came to the hospital, I was big on not forcing Lloyd to interact with Henry.   Being in the hospital was weird enough for Lloyd and I knew that we had the whole rest of the boys’ lives for them to get into each others’ faces.  I had other people hold Henry so that my arms could be free to hug Lloyd.   We had a couple of presents ready for him and we said, “Happy Big Brother Day!”  Lloyd came to visit twice that day and even by the second visit he was more curious about Henry and able to stand me holding the baby while also snuggling Lloyd.

When we came home we reenacted the pictures from “My New Baby” and Lloyd seemed to understand everything that was happening.   We made sure that Lloyd got out of the house a little bit everyday – whether to go on trips to the store with Greg, go to swimming class, his storytime at the library, or go play with Grandma.  Also – even though we were tired and sometimes I felt “touched-out” we made sure to give Lloyd some one-on-one playtime and cuddle time at home when Henry was sleeping.

Sure enough Lloyd seeked out Henry on his own terms.  It took about five days, but eventually I caught Lloyd going over to his baby brother and gently patting him.  Then it became wild pleas to “Hold Henry!” as a killer stall-tactic for bedtime.

So that’s what we did!  And so far so good.  Hopefully if you’re reading this and thinking about how to help your oldest adjust to a new baby some of these techniques will help.