Can we trade the baby for something else?

It can end up feeling like quite a lot of legwork goes into preparing your child to meet a baby sibling.

I remember buying our eldest a gift (a Peppa Pig jigsaw) “from her baby sister” and I asked her to choose something she would like to buy for her new sister, too (she chose a Peter Rabbit comforter, which she later purloined).

We also put some thought into how and where we should introduce them – I’d seen a couple of social media posts suggesting putting our newborn in a Moses basket so the meet would occur on more “neutral” ground. It seemed to work.

We also continued to take it in turns to do our eldest’s bedtime routine, so that I would at least get some one-on-one time with her while we adapted to life as a four (and the incessant cluster feeding which I’d forgotten all about!).

Don’t get me wrong, there were challenges and tears along the way, but I do think these helped sweeten the deal for her. Fast forward a year and they love and hate each other on a daily basis (although the needle tends to move more on the love end of the spectrum, for now).

The recent news that Mummy Pig (of Peppa Pig fame) is pregnant with her third child piglet sparked plenty of conversation around how to break this news to kids – and the kind of reactions they have when you do.

A new episode of the TV show, airing on 30 March, will see the cartoon pig and her younger brother George experience this........

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