By Hege Crowton

Naturally there are no guarantees on how your older child will react when you bring your newborn back home and everything might turn out to be just fine. You can be among the lucky ones whos older child shows nothing but pride, love, joy and excitement over having a younger sibling. He or she can end up being the greatest helper around the house and with the baby.

Unfortunately things does not always turn out this way and more often than not you will see a lot of rivalry and jealousy come from the older child. This is not a very pleasant experience for anyone in the household and believe it or not it can be very hard on the older child who probably feel left out and less loved than before, not understanding that this is not the case.

In order to try and prevent this situation from happening some adjustment and preparing need to be started already early in your pregnancy. Something that is very important is to be open and honest with your child, include him/her in everything going on and explain what is about to happen. Make your child feel important and let him know that you cant do this without his help.

By doing this you will make him or her feel very important and from the beginning this new baby will be a part of his/her new responsibility. Let your child know what will be the things that you expect, for example; check on the baby when it is sleeping, help feed the baby, help give the baby baths and since he/she is the oldest he has to teach the baby things because a baby knows nothing.

If you are able to convey these responsibilities to your child you will most likely find 'a child on a mission' after the baby is born. Despite all of these new chores there is another thing that needs to be done every day, the most important thing of all, reassure your oldest child that you love him/her just the same as before maybe even more for being such a great brother/sister. Always include your oldest child, never push him/her away and always make sure to spend quality time with him/her alone.

These are some great ways to include your child and prepare him/her for the arrival of the new baby and it may even help prevent some of the jealousy which often occurs with the birth of a new baby. The earlier you start including your child the better, you can even bring your child along for your doctors appointments where he or she can meet the doctor and see what is actually is going on.

Visiting mom in the hospital after the baby is born is also a very good thing, it prepares the child for the homecoming and that mom will not be coming back alone. The child now needs to get ready for his/her responsibilities as the older sibling. As long as they know they are loved and know they are big enough to help out you might have hardly any problems at all when it comes to jealousy and rivalry from your older child.

Hege Crowton is an established expert copywriter. She is known for doing in-depth research before writing her articles. www.Ispjv.com www.Submitcontent.com Copyright 2005 ParentingContent.com