Sibling Class

This past weekend I took Katelynn to "Sibling Class" at the hospital, which we have been calling "Big Sister Class" in our family. There were about 8 or 10 kiddos there, all having little brothers!

I thought the hospital did a really great job with this class. When we arrived they worked on a craft - this door sign:

Then we went to another room to watch a 15 minute video that was silly and geared toward pre-schoolers. It talked about many aspects of becoming a big brother/sister, including right and wrong ways to hold the baby and the many ways they could help their mommy and daddy.

They gave us a tour of the labor and delivery room and we peeked in the baby nursery. They talked to the kids about how they might spend the night with a friend or relative when it was time for the baby to come. Then all the kids got to practice swaddling a fake baby. As you can see, KK took this very seriously:

They also had a bucket of baby items, and each kid got to pick one. Then the instructor went around the circle and discussed each item. They included things like nose bulb syringes, hospital bracelets, and other things that might be foreign to them. They also had a special plastic tube about the size of a toilet paper roll. The kids practiced putting little bitty toys in the tube - if the toy fits in the tube, it is too small for baby brother...

Then the kids got to take home a coloring book, one of the plastic tubes, and a couple of toys. Katelynn seemed to really soak it all in. We have been reading books and talking about baby Tyler for a long time. Hopefully this class, along with some unexpected but excellent breastfeeding "lessons" from some girlfriends with infants :-) , will really help cement things for her.