I am wondering what is the best book for my daughter to learn about the new baby? I have been on the barnes and noble sites and can't decide which one is the best. Any suggestions would be great. Some things that she is doing is resorting back to baby things. She is 3 and we talk about the baby coming and now she wants to be held, wants to fall asleep on us, not doing well with potty training etc. So I thought that maybe if we get her a big sister book she will start to understand some things. Thank for your help in advance.
"What Baby Needs" by Bill and Martha Sears. It gives suggestions for what the older sibling can do to help out with the new baby, and how important they will be.
If it's a girl, Welcome to Your World, Baby by Brooke Shields. My 5 yr old still loves it after a year and my 15 mo old likes it now too. The older one has it memorized and reads it to her. So sweet.
I don't think you can go wrong with any of the books out there right now. Just read through them and find one you like. Fine one that is simple and focuses on although the little one is coming your older daughter is still special because she is a big sister. We had a few that we read to my son each night before his little brother came. He had them memorized by the time the baby was born. I think the main thing that helped us was to try to keep my older son's routine as normal as possible. We had a few issues with potty training (my son was not quite 3 when my 2nd was born) but overall the transition was very smooth. One thing that we did that was cool was when we brought the baby home we let the older sibling show us around the house and introduce each room to the baby.
I think every older sibling with handle the change in different ways so just be prepared for the worst and be pleasantly surprised when it is not as bad as you expected :)
The "what to expect when you are expecting" group has a great book for sibling's. It does have some graphic language though. I didn't realize it until my oldest kid read it aloud one day. LOL.
Welcome To Your World Baby! by Brooke Shields is a really cute one. My daughter was 4 when my last was born and she wanted me to read it over and over! In addition to reading to her about the baby I found it really helped my oldest to just talk realistically about what babies do. When we were out and a baby was crying I would just casually say something like "Oh look at that sweet baby. You know babies just cry. Thats just what they do." Soon enough she started pointing out and saying that when we saw one "Mommy, thats just what babies do!" I think telling her things like that really helped her not get so stressed out when we finally brought her baby sister home. She just knew what to expect. Also getting her a doll and making a big deal about becoming a big sister (but not making her feel like she has any responsibility for the baby) might make her more secure and less scared when all the changes start happening.
Good luck and congratulations on your new baby!
