School-Aged Children

When to tell?

I have a step daughter who I adore, love her like she is my own.  We are currently NEWLY pregnate and I hate keeping this from her.  We are planning to tell people after our first u/s on Thursday but I know the wait is going to kill me let alone, a 6 y/o.  Anyone else?
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Re: When to tell?

  • First of all congrats!

    Second of all, I think you want to think about the fact that an u/s at 5 weeks confirms the pregnancy, but it certainly doesn't rule out the possibility of a routine m/c later on in the first trimester.   Should the worst case scenario happen, and you have to tell your small step-daughter that you're not pregnant anymore, will you be okay with that?  Knowing her, how do you think she'd take that type of bad news?  If you think both you and she could handle it in the event of a m/c, then I'd go ahead and share the news.

    Thirdly, I think you want to think about how much of a big deal you want to make of an event that is a long way off.  Maybe waiting a bit would spare her the long, long 40 week wait!

    Finally, on the other hand, if you are going to tell other adults who are around your SD (grandparents, etc.), it might be hard for others not to talk about it for the next few weeks when your SD is around.  If you think she'll find out by overhearing others talking to you about it, then you might want to tell her at the same time as everyone else (or even before!)

    When I was pg with my second, I got the BFP on Dec. 19.  We waited until Christmas morning, after presents, to tell our DD (who was then 3) that we were going to have a new baby in the family, but that the baby wouldn't be born until the summer.  We told the rest of the family later on Christmas day.

    High School English teacher and mom of 2 kids:

    DD, born 9/06/00 -- 12th grade
    DS, born 8/25/04 -- 7th grade
  • MH split the beans right away when we found out about DS2.   I was about 5 wks pregnant and we hadn't had a chance to discuss how we'd tell DD (DS1 was too young to understand).  DH just blurted it out during family time.  I was upset it was so early and was worried something would happen which would break DDs heart!   As you can see, everything worked out but I would have waited longer...


    Baby Birthday Ticker Ticker Baby Birthday Ticker Ticker Baby Birthday Ticker Ticker
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  • We didn't tell DD until I was about 13.5 weeks. We planned a very special "big sister day" where we let her pick whatever we ate and did all day (we didn't call it "big sister day" we called it "her day"). At the end of the day we gave her a present that included a big sister shirt and book. It was THE BEST THING ever.

    That coming week, we used her to tell our families over the phone and Skype (we live far away from all family). 

    We wanted her to be the first to know so she could help us tell people, but we also didn't want to tell her until we felt comfortable with the whole world knowing (which was right, because the first day after we told her, they wrote letters at school to servicemen and she wrote, "Dear soldier, thank you for serving our country. My mommy has a baby in her tummy."). 

    Mom to J (10), L (4), and baby #3 arriving in July of 2015
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