Prepping Your Child for the New Baby

Even parents need to emotionally prepare themselves for this transition. And the parents have to be ready to face their own feelings of sadness for their first child.

"A mother realizes that she's losing [time with the older child] and she mourns time with that child," Brazelton says. "Mom needs to get used to that." Truesdale echoed Dr. Brazelton's sentiments saying, "Some parents feel so guilty when they look at the older child. . . . They have all these feelings, like, 'Am I going to have enough time for this child?'" That's why in Beth Israel's refresher childbirth course, Truesdale focuses on parents handling guilty feelings about the older child and translating these feelings into positive actions.