YOURS, MINE & OURS

How do you prepare your children and your partner’s children, for a new sibling? Moms and experts offer advice.

- KATE SIDLEY

Annabel remembers introducing her hour-old baby to her partner’s teenage daughter. She didn’t know what to expect. The older girl, an only child, had been shocked and angry since she first discovered that her father was having another baby. “It had been hell, frankly. Nothing we did or said seemed to help. But she embraced her sister whole-heartedly from the moment she arrived. The idea of the baby was scary, but in the actual presence of a baby, she came round. She realised that her world had been made larger, rather than her place in it becoming smaller.”

Not every introduction goes so smoothly. A baby disrupts a sibling’s life. It can be especially tricky with the added complexity of a blended family. Heidi Reynolds, a social worker at Family Life Centre and in private practice, helps blended families to navigate that space. “One of the challenges is that the adults are excited for this new baby and they have a romanticised view of what it’s going to be like,” she says. “It can lead them to ignore the complexity of real blended family life. What they might miss is the perspective of the older siblings.”

It goes without saying that the arrival of a new baby changes the family dynamic significantly. Of course there can be enormous gains in a blended family and in a new sibling – more love, more fun, more connection. But there are also losses for the other children – of time, of their place in the family, of connection, even of resources like physical space and money treats. They might well feel displaced or threatened. They will likely already have been through a separation or divorce, and had to accommodate new step-parents and possibly their children.