It's hard to know if Ethan understands that he's going to become a big brother next month. He's only two years old himself and as he doesn't really communicate with words yet, it's even harder to know what he does and doesn't understand. I'm fairly sure he's aware that somethings going on. He's very aware of my growing stomach and will often pay it a lot of attention, be it through kissing it, stroking it, pressing his ear against it when I ask him if he can hear anything, or on a bad day - attempting to hit it (yeeep, my toddler is a normal toddler too!).
He gets excited every week when I stand in my usual spot in our bedroom whilst my Husband takes a photo of me for my weekly bump update for my blog. He often wants to be involved and will hold his arms up to me until I pick him up so he can get in on the photo. He's become quite funny with having his photo taken generally, so him wanting to get in front of the camera is, asides from these times, quite the rarity!
We call our baby by the name we've chosen for him when we're at home, I hope this has helped Ethan get used to us his little bro's name and so hopefully he'll understand who he is when he comes home from the hospital with us!
We've been doing some new-baby related activities too, just to keep the idea of a new baby present in Ethans mind, so that it's not too overwhelming for him when we go from a family of three to a family four. Any parent who has a child who is a Peppa Pig fan, will probably have seen the 'Baby Alexander' episode.. (yeah, THAT one.. we've seen it a billion times too!).. We spotted the book based on the episode when we were at Paultons Park on Ethan's birthday last month and being that we have a bit of a book-worm on our hands and one who's soon to be living with a new baby, we thought it'd be a nice addition to his book shelf. He loves us reading it to him and giggles at the things 'Baby Alexander' does. It's this book here on Amazon (a lot cheaper that at Peppa Pig World!!) if you're interested.
We've also been playing an Orchard Toys game for 2+ year olds called New Baby Lotto. We play it slightly differently to how the instructions say we should because it's a fairly new game to us and Ethan is literally only just over the recommended age of play, but he has so much fun matching the pictures up to the one's on the board. It's pretty good because whilst keeping the idea of a new baby present in his mind, we've also been learning new words associated with having a baby as I've been explaining to him what everything is as we pick each picture up. This is the game if you're interested in having a look at it.
Like I said before, it is difficult to know what Ethan does and doesn't understand about his soon-to-be new baby brother, but the most important thing is, is that we are hopefully taking the right approach with preparing him and will hopefully get it right with letting him get involved and such when baby does arrive. I want Ethan to feel very much apart of taking care of the new baby and I'm hoping that he'll feel a great deal of affection and responsibility in his new big brother role.
What did you do to prepare your little one for a new arrival? Do you have any tips you can share?
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