Читать книгу Welcoming Your Second Baby - Vicki Lansky - Страница 17

• Show your readiness to answer questions about birth and reproduction by your tone of voice and your patience. Give assurance that it’s all right to ask any question.

• Use the correct words for the parts and functions of the body in your discussions. They’re no harder to learn than other words, and they won’t have to be unlearned later. (For instance, use the word uterus, not stomach.)

• Get suitable books about babies and birth very early in your pregnancy, perhaps even before you break the news to your child. Read them together and make them available for casual perusal by the child.

• Don’t be surprised if your child aged two or so has no questions, or very few, about the baby. A statement like, “Mothers have a special place where the baby grows until it’s ready to be born” may be all that’s required in the way of explaining reproduction.

• Be prepared to repeat whatever facts you do give many times.

• Expect lots of questions from your preschooler. He or she will probably want details about “what’s going on inside there”—how the baby eats, sleeps, goes to the bathroom, and other such practical information. Try not to answer more than what’s asked.

• On the other hand, don’t be alarmed if your preschooler doesn’t ask any questions. For some children, the baby doesn’t seem real until it actually appears. Often children need the physical presence of the baby before they become interested and start asking questions.

We showed our child pictures of intrauterine development, and took him to childbirth films. He saw a sex education special on PBS. If we had it to do over, we would not prepare him so well. We put too much emphasis on the new baby, and he reacted.

Dana Clark, Santa Barbara, CA

When our last child was on the way, our girls were 7 and 8. I bought two very good books with lots of pictures explaining the hows and whys of birth. They loved seeing how “their” baby was developing. They were as excited as my husband and I were. It’s been three years now, and the poor “baby” has had three mothers—he can’t get away with much!

Susan Lipke, Harietta, MI

• If you have the feeling that your child is taking an “if-I-ignore-it-it-will-go-away” attitude, you may want to introduce the subject yourself, so he or she will realize that the baby is real and really will be arriving.

• For a child who is old enough to ask or understand, explain the stretching of a mother’s vagina by putting a tennis ball into a tube sock to show how the sock’s opening easily stretches and then resumes its original opening.