Older child at the birth. Yes or no?

[2Butterfly]

You may also need to speak to whoever is delivering bub to see if they would even allow them to be there

[hopefully2]

Personally I found being with my sister during labour very traumatic. I think you have to have a plan where she can escape if she wants. I would hate for her to be traumatized.

[Super Trooper]

Yes! DD (almost5) will be at the birth of this baby, it is a natural part of life and i see no reason to hide it from her, and we want her to be there to share her siblings arrival into the world! Mil is on call to be DDs support person/take her away if she decides she cant handle it

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[Cluky79]

I'm not too sure tbh it does depend on the child. DSD was brought into the delivery room about 10min after DS was born, I wanted her to be the first person to see him, the grand mothers soon followed.

[cluckcluck]

Sorry, I'd vote no, I nearly died giving birth to dd and I'd hate for a child to witness that, xdh thought I was going to die and was really scared, I was in surgery for over 4 hours getting stitched up.

Like pp have said, maybe have her there for part of the labour and bring her back in after the birth.

[SassyMummy]

I would absolutely do this.

My daughter will be welcome to attend the birth of any siblings she has in future. She would be welcome no matter her age.

I think in countries where this is commonplace, birth is not a scary issue... children are exposed to normal, natural birth all the time, and so girls don't grow up only ever seeing birth as an American woman being rushed off to hospital like it's an emergency where's she's promptly popped on a bed, legs in stirrups, screaming at her poor dorky husband for doing this to her, and demanding drugs.

I want my daughter to see how birth actually is, and how it should be. I want her to have a real life experience with birth, and hopefully that will assist her when she's older and considering motherhood herself.

I'll make sure, however, that she has her own support person... so that her needs can be attended to, and so that if something does go wrong, she can be taken away so as not to witness it.

ETA - I plan to homebirth, so I don't need to check with anybody to see if it's okay.

[katezane]

I think 7 is a little too young no matter how mature. It would be a beautiful experience however I think 10 is an ok age. At 7 I think you get a vision in your heard about this beautiful baby beating born and while it is that for us I think a child could find the whole process quite full on and traumatic. God forbid something went wrong or you lost a lot of blood.

I would have her in the waiting room to come in as soon as your baby is born.

Talk to your caregiver aboutit anyway. Good luck

[Super Trooper]

I would absolutely do this.

My daughter will be welcome to attend the birth of any siblings she has in future. She would be welcome no matter her age.

I think in countries where this is commonplace, birth is not a scary issue... children are exposed to normal, natural birth all the time, and so girls don't grow up only ever seeing birth as an American woman being rushed off to hospital like it's an emergency where's she's promptly popped on a bed, legs in stirrups, screaming at her poor dorky husband for doing this to her, and demanding drugs.

I want my daughter to see how birth actually is, and how it should be. I want her to have a real life experience with birth, and hopefully that will assist her when she's older and considering motherhood herself.

I'll make sure, however, that she has her own support person... so that her needs can be attended to, and so that if something does go wrong, she can be taken away so as not to witness it.

ETA - I plan to homebirth, so I don't need to check with anybody to see if it's okay.

My thoughts exactly!

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[Super Trooper]

I also think younger children tend to deal with this stuff better.. They havent been told by society that birth is yucky/scary/etc to the same extent as older children... They are able to enjoy it and celebrate it without needing to micromanage/over-analyse/understand every little aspect of it

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[Niki24]

Nope. Not for us anyway. I have had two complicated deliveries though. I would have no problem dd coming jn for some of the labor, or until I started pushing, and then after bub was born, but that's it. And I wouldn't want to watch it myself so I highly doubt I'd want dd watching. To each their own though. Whatever you are comfortable with.