Prepare your toddler for a new sibling

Toddlers live in the present, so a pregnancy announced at twelve weeks feels like an eternity of waiting. For most two- and three-year-olds, the sweet spot is four to six weeks before the due date: long enough to adjust to the idea, short enough that "the baby is coming" stays real. Older children — five and up — can hear the news earlier, because they understand time better and enjoy being included longer.

What matters more than timing is that your child hears it from you, in a matter-of-fact voice, before they hear it from a relative or notice the furniture changing. One short sentence is enough: "There is a baby growing, and when it comes in the spring you will have a little sister."

Abstract family talk ("you are going to be a big brother!") gives a toddler a role they cannot picture. Concrete sentences work better:

• "The baby will sleep a lot and cry. Babies cry, and that is how they talk."
• "The baby will not play with you at first. When your arm was this small, you could not either."
• "I will need to feed the baby with my body. Your grandma will come, and your dad will do bath time."

The last one matters most. Naming exactly who will take care of them, and when, answers the question a child this age is actually asking: who is mine?

Children rehearse changes on their dolls, their stuffed animals and — usefully — on you. Let your toddler wrap a doll in a muslin, "feed" it, put it down for a nap and, crucially, get to say no, it is sleeping and walk away. Practising the boring and the annoying parts is what prepares them, not just the cute ones.

If you have friends with a newborn, a short supervised visit does more than any explanation: your child sees the noise, the smell, the sheer immobility — and that you survived it in the same room.

In the first weeks after the birth, most jealousy is not about the baby. It is about the cancelled park trip, the rushed bath, the story that had to be skipped. Before the baby comes, decide which two or three routines belong to your older child — the bedtime story, Saturday pancakes, the walk to nursery — and tell whoever is helping out that those are non-negotiable.

Ten minutes of undivided, phone-free time with your toddler, twice a day, beats a whole distracted afternoon. Name it out loud: "Now it is Ada and Dad time." Children accept sharing a parent far better when they are certain of having their own slice.

Visitors will arrive bearing gifts for the baby. Keep a small stash of wrapped presents — a new crayon set, a sticker book — and hand them to your toddler when the baby gets admiration, so the stream of new things flows their way. And let the baby "give" your older child one present at the first meeting: a big-kid art apron or a torch reads as a peace treaty from the new arrival.

Toddlers take in a story about a character far more easily than a lecture about themselves. A picture book where a child like them meets the new baby, gets through the loud weeks and ends up proud, read aloud a few times in the month before the birth, gives your child a script for what is coming — especially when the hero has their name, their hair and both of their family's languages.

That is the book we make at Avenlo: a personalized picture book built around your child's real moment, with consistent art and a read-aloud narration, in English, French, Spanish or German — or side by side in two of them. A single book is €12, a bundle of three moments is €29.

• Announce it four to six weeks before the due date, in one calm sentence.
• Describe the baby concretely: crying, sleeping, not playing yet.
• Let them practise on a doll, including the annoying parts.
• Guard two or three of their routines through the arrival weeks.
• Ten truly undivided minutes, twice a day, beats a distracted afternoon.
• Route some of the gifts their way, and let the baby give one back.
• Read them a story where the hero is a child like them, before the baby comes.