Don't announce your pregnancy immediately - a child will expect the baby to arrive at once rather than in 9 months' time. Here are several ways of forestalling or reducing jealousy among siblings before a new baby arrives.
Talk about 'our' baby, so that brothers and sisters think of the newcomer as belonging to them too.
Allow older children to help prepare for the new arrival, by choosing names and clothes, for example, and helping to get the nursery ready.
Before you confront your children with the new baby, let them welcome their mother. They'll have missed her.
Make a scrapbook of baby pictures cut out from magazines to show what babies are like. Include the 'downside', such as images of babies crying and changing nappies, as well as the nicer side. Point out that although a new baby will need a lot of caring for at first, he'll become more independent - just as older children do.
Ask your partner to bring in your children to meet the baby soon after he's born. Buy a small present for them beforehand: it might balance all the gifts that others will shower on the new arrival.
