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Bringing Home Baby

The Second Time Around

By Amy Vaughan

P>Before Gideon was born, Blair was the easiest, most pleasant, agreeable child I, or any of my friends and family, had ever known. I kid you not... from Sunday school teachers to my friends with more, uhm, "active" children, I was the envy of everyone. Some of my friends (with second children) told me I was in for it with number two, that he/she would make my head spin. Others told me they hoped number two would be as wonderful as Blair.

We read tons of sibling books, talked about Blair's brother/sister. I bought him a doll, and planned (and did) let him take care of his baby while I was taking care of mine. We took the sibling class at the hospital, where he got to practice changing a diaper, and got all kinds of neat stuff, a coloring book about the new baby, etc. We involved him as much as we could, all of which he seemed to enjoy, and he looked forward with anticipation the arrival of his sibling.

The day we brought Gideon home from the hospital, life for Blair was irretrievably reversed. Uncontrollable SORROW was written all over his face, even though I made sure Grandma was holding little brother, not me when we came home. Blair had already met Gideon, in the hospital, but now he was at our house! To stay! Blair's personality underwent a 180 degree turn. He was obstinate where he had been obedient. He was sullen where he had been happy. Later on, as Gideon became more active, I watched carefully to make sure Blair did not injure him, but I did try to let him interact with him.

This was really bad for a while. As much as I loved Gideon, I wondered what we had done wrong. Should Blair have been older/younger when he became a big brother (he was 3 months shy of three years)? We didn't displace any of his things for his brother (in fact, Gideon slept in our bed from the beginning, and we welcomed Blair into the family bed as well. I also tandem nursed both of them for a long time (occasionally even both at the same time, so little brother didn't even take that away from him.) I do think this helped him immensely in adapting to his new brother.