This is part of a sponsored campaign with Latina Mom Bloggers and Huggies. However all opinions expressed are my own.
Bringing home a new baby is already challenging enough, but bringing home a new baby when you have a 4 year old child who is used to being the only child and center of attention is another story. This is one of the most recent parenting challenges that I have had to face.
My 4 year old Madison was so excited about becoming a big sister and I can assure you that we did everything we could do to mentally and emotionally prepare her for the big change within our household. We bought her a book about the importance of becoming a big sister and read it to her quite a few times. We had several conversations about how important she would be as the big sister. I allowed her to help me pick out the nursery theme and we even revolved the baby shower around both her and I. Therefore, she received big sister gifts in addition to the typical baby shower gifts that I received as well. We really made a conscious effort to make sure she did not feel left out in anyway.
She was so excited waiting for her baby sister to arrive and when she did get here she was so happy to see her in the hospital, but then when we brought her home the reality of it all set in within her little 4 year old mind. Suddenly there was this tiny being taking over her mom’s attention, and although I tried my best to not make Madison feel left out, it was difficult giving her the same attention that she was used to because I was nursing and recovering from a C-Section as well.
Before I knew it, I had a very unhappy little 4 year old. She was having melt downs of epic proportion, she was having accidents at night, when she had already been sleeping through the night without pull-ups for 8 months already! She would cry and tell me things like, “Mama, you don’t love me anymore.” This broke my heart to hear and my husband and I were at our wits end about what to do.
Finally, we just knew that we would have to just keep reiterating to her how much we loved her and how much her baby sister would love her too. Thank goodness she was sweet with Mia, her baby sister, and that her anger was only directed towards my husband and I. Since I really couldn’t go out much at first, her daddy (my husband Mark) tried to take her out alone to do special things like ice cream dates and going to the movies. Since I was nursing all the time, I would invite Madison into my room to read stories to her in bed, while I was nursing her sister. I would also ask her to help me with the baby too and would praise her for doing such a great job when she did.
After a month things started to get back to normal. Madison’s melt downs began to fade, she stopped saying I didn’t love her anymore, the nighttime accidents also stopped and soon our happy little girl returned. It was a transition for all of us, but thankfully we got through it.
In parenting we face challenges all the time, some more challenging than others, so at least there are great, reliable baby products that we can rely on like Huggies Snug & Dry Diapers with New SureFit Design and its unique flexible waistband for all-around fit. It provides up to 12 hours of leakage protection! Also don’t forget about Huggies Natural Care Wipes with its New Triple Clean Layers. Products like these certainly help parenting become a little bit easier on all of us.
Make sure to check out the series of Huggies’ parenting webisodes featuring Zuleyka Rivera and her son Sebastian! Zuleyka is the Huggies spokesperson! The webisodes will be uploaded monthly and can be viewed on the Huggies Latino Facebook page at www.facebook.com/HuggiesLatino. You can check out the 2nd webisode below:
I would love to hear your comments about your parenting challenges or just leave me a note to why you are a fan of Huggies!
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