We’re getting ready for two new babies to arrive. One will be a cousin, my daughter’s first cousin. Since she’s an only child, she is especially excited since this is the first time she’s experienced the birth of a new family member. Of course, she’s not really experiencing it- her cousin will be born in a time zone about 13 hours away! The other baby is the baby of a lovely friend, and that baby should be born today.
We’ve had the birds and the bees talk. In fact, we’ve had it ad infinitum around here. My daughter would be able to talk down her entire preschool class and tell them all about how babies are made if she were so inclined. Luckily, most of her baby play tends to be at home. This is also good because she’s been pretending to have babies on the floor and has been doing a play-by-play narration of the process from conception to birth.
We have several great resources for a pregnancy and childbirth-obsessed preschooler. One is a Mayan breastfeeding and pregnancy doll that I got her for Christmas. This mama doll comes with a tiny baby who can be inserted into a flap under the mom’s skirt, so the mama looks pregnant. Ah, if only real childbirth were that simple.
We have also been very much enjoying the book Welcome With Love by Jenni Overend, an Australian author. The book is a description of a homebirth. I chose it because it is a very positive and fairly accurate description of how birth happens, whether it’s at home or in a hospital. I especially like the descriptions of the noises the mom makes as she is giving birth. The book approaches birth from the perspective of a young preschooler, perhaps three years old, and it’s remarkably touching and humorous at the same time. Of course, it was a little more touching and humorous the first ten times I read it. By the eleventh time in two days, I must confess to feeling a little sick of it.
Is your preschooler fascinated by birth? What do you do to feed this fascination?