How To Prepare Your Toddler for a Homebirth

Although I was super excited about having a homebirth with my second pregnancy, one of my biggest worries was HOW to prepare my toddler for a homebirth. I think other moms can relate! There are a lot of unknowns that comes with birth, and it’s normal to be worried about how your toddler will respond to birth. Will they be scared of the noises you’ll make? Will they fall asleep? Will they unintentionally distract you and break your focus during labor?

Why have your toddler present at your homebirth?

One of the things I love about homebirth is that welcoming the new baby can be a family affair. It can be really special to have your children present during the birth of their sibling. It is suspected that having your toddler present for your birth can help them adjust better to the new baby and have less feelings of jealousy in the first few weeks after birth.

With the right preparation, your toddler can be prepared for your homebirth and know exactly what to expect during the birth!

Preparation Before Birth

As with any big transition, toddlers will likely do much better with the birth when they are prepared in detail ahead of time. These preparation ideas will help you talk to your toddler about their expectations around birth so that they can know what will happen and be on the same page as everyone else during your birth.

Read Homebirth Books

We ordered two homebirth books for my toddler; The Birth of Our New Baby and Welcome Home. Both were great for giving my toddler a visual depiction on her level of what birth would be like. These books talk about the role of midwives and doulas, how labor and birth will be, how mama gives birth in the birth pool, and what happens after birth. We read both of these books to my toddler many many times and they definitely helped prepare her for the process.

Watch Birth Videos Together

Watching birth videos can be a great way for your child to become used to the concept of birth. There are lots of free, sweet homebirth videos on YouTube that present birth in a positive way and can also help inspire YOU as you prepare for birth. I definitely recommend viewing the birth videos ahead of time before you show your toddler, just to make sure it’s not too scary and doesn’t contain anything you don’t want them to see.

Meet the birth team

Allow your toddler to meet your birth team ahead of time so that they are already comfortable being around them. To a small child, it could feel pretty disorienting to have strangers coming into their house, so meeting your midwife, doula, or birth photographer ahead of time can definitely help with some of the uneasiness. I also talked to my toddler a lot about every member of our birth team, so she knew their names and what exactly they would be doing.

Involve them in prenatal care as much as possible

When possible, have your toddler at some of your midwife appointments so that they can be involved in taking care of the baby before the birth. My toddler loved to help my midwife measure my belly and listen to the heartbeat!

During the Birth

Talking to your toddler about birth often during your pregnancy will help prepare them with knowing what to expect during labor and birth. These tips below are things to be prepared for your toddler to have while you are actually in labor to help them have the best experience possible!

Have a special “job” for your toddler to do

We talked about this ahead of time often with my toddler, so she knew exactly what her jobs were going to be during my labor and birth. Her “responsibility” was to bring me my water bottle and some snacks to eat during labor. In one of the homebirth books we read her, it talks about jobs that kids can do while mom is in labor. One of them is to bring her cups of water and snacks to eat so she can keep her energy. My toddler was very prepared and excited for this role of bringing me water, and I felt like it helped her feel involved in the process!

Consider having someone there dedicated to their care

Whether you choose to have your mom, a friend, sister, or a sibling doula there, it can be a good idea to have someone who is there to be dedicated to your toddler. This person can hold them, feed them, distract them, play with them, etc. It can bring a lot of peace of mind for a mom to know that their older child is being taken care of but still around to bond as a family after the birth! If a sibling doula is not in your budget, don’t stress though!* (see last tip below!)

Have a box of special activities for during your labor

Having a box of special toys or activities for your toddler to play with during your labor can help keep them entertained and give them something to look forward to during your labor. You could go shopping at the dollar store with your toddler and let them help pick out some inexpensive activities to put in the box. Sticker books, playdoh, pompoms and a muffin tin, markers/crayons and paper, glue sticks and paper hearts, etc could all be great activities!

Remember: there’s a good chance they might be sleeping.

You can put all of these tips into practice and then your labor/birth rolls around and GUESS WHAT? Toddler sleeps through everything. This is what happened in my case, and my midwives say that it happens pretty often. I’m so glad I didn’t stress too much or hire a sibling doula because my little one slept through my whole labor and woke up 20 minutes after her baby brother was born. It was incredible timing!

It’s normal to have some fears or worries about the unknown and how exactly to go about preparing your toddler for your homebirth. I hope that these tips gave you ideas on how to prepare your toddler for a homebirth and ease your mind a bit. Remember that birth is NORMAL and toddlers often will react way better than we think they will – especially with proper preparation!

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You might also be interested in:

• Choosing Between a Natural Hospital Birth and a Homebirth
• My waterbirth: Positive Homebirth Story
• Birth Plan Template