Every morning when my daughter Ramona opens her eyes, she snuggles up to my face and whispers “Hello, mummy”. These days, this tiny tradition is followed up by her scuffling down and pulling apart my pyjama top and murmuring “Hello, baby” into my tummy. With no bump to reveal my 4 month pregnancy just yet my belly button is getting all the attention.
Ramona is two and loves babies. She loves babies, imaginary babies and Things that Will Do.
Ramona Babywearing
Ramona constantly has to be either pushing a buggy or wearing a baby in the sling, and I normally have to accompany her, with a Cabbage Patch Kid tied to my front.
As I cooked dinner yesterday I could hear her singing sweet nothings “Oh, baby. Good? Baby? Oooh. Baby” and looked over my shoulder to see what she was caressing with her soft words and hands.
It was a bulb of garlic.
Obviously.
Minutes later, I had to help her undo the zip on her jumper because the garlic wanted “milkies.”
(Mind you, a few months ago it was me that had to nurse the obscure objects she chose so I’m quite happy she has taken on that responsibility herself. My days of breastfeeding toy cars and lego are over for a while, thanks.)
When my mum first heard our new baby news, she exclaimed “Crumbs, Ramona will have her nose put out, won’t she?!” I guess it was in reference to the intense attachment we have, and the practices that, for us, are a big part in it. When the baby comes along Ramona will have to deal with not lying starfish like along our bed between us, she’ll learn to share Mummy’s milkies (with a human and not a bit of plastic) and she’ll have to adapt to another little mite being limpet-like in the sling.
And of course, while I feel blissfully relaxed in this pregnancy and perhaps naively optimistic about a second baby, I can’t help but feel a leeetle bit intreipidly curious about what tandem nursing will be like, and keeping them both happy during the night times.
I am fairly confident that all those juicy hormones will smother everything in glazey eyed love for a while, making it all okay for me.
And hopefully Ramona’s love for babies (and I hope she loves the new one a little bit more than the ones she frequently sits on/ covers in Marmite) will help her ride out the changes. We just have 5 months to get her used to the idea that the new kid on the block will be a bit noisier than the garlic and a bit more demanding than my belly button!
I found that it was surprisingly easy to integrate the new baby into the family. Partly because, like Ramona, mine were keen on babies, but also I think because you forget that a tiny newborn doesn’t take up much attention from the point of view of a toddler. They sleep an awful lot, so they’re not very much in the way a lot of the time, or they’re feeding, but the other children accept that as perfectly natural. I found it harder when the new baby started crawling and grabbing toys…
Ah, yes that is so true, it is possibly a pretty easy transiton for them, with the baby going from a sleeping dot to a contender over the course of a few months!
Exactly.
You can get books and DVD’s on the subject of a new sibling in the family. I think she is doing very well with her bulb of garlic, it shows she has nuturing instincts and yes it is good to have them at such a young age. Do you have any friends with small babies? You could ask if you and Ramona can spend some time with the child to see how she gets on. I think she will be just fine.
Yeah, she just cuddles them and feeds them rice cakes. She honestly just thinks they are BRILLIANT!
So cute!
Oof, isn’t she!
The garlic story made me giggle a lot 🙂 What a cutie Ramona is! x
Hehehehe, oh man, she just gives me the biggest smile when I think of her cute self!
She is just a little dote x
TOTES A DOTE!!!!
i still have fond memories of my SON nursing his teddy bear when my sister was pregnant with his next cousin. he’d lift up his shirt, “latch” on that bear, and get the same world-weary, bored expression on his face that my sister had. it was lovely. Sadly, we were not fortunate enough to provide living siblings for Aaron (he has 4 siblings to meet in the after life!) but he still, at age 20, LOVES babies and has througout his life. He was quite content as a 7 year old boy to spend over 2 hourse with a newborn 2nd cousin on his lap. I hope he marries a woman who wants lots of kids and that she comes from a large family so that Aaron finally gets the siblings he never had and that his kids will have cousins galore. I’m sure Ramona will be the best sister ever – she is already practicing. and i love it that you are so encouraging of her as she discovers this new phase in her own life. (also glad you’re letting us all watch!)
I don’t think you are going to have any problems with Ramona accepting a new family member. Your family is so loving and affectionate. I think you’ll find that becausee Ramona is so content with her own relationship with you and the Mr that she will just take on protective sister role. When Charlie came along, Izzy spent the first month telling everyone that he was “her brother”. As in he was nothing to anybody else! She settled down after a month or two.