How to prepare your toddler for a new sibling: keep bedtime the one thing that does not move

Six weeks before our second daughter was due, I taped a sheet of paper to the inside of a kitchen cupboard with eight lines on it. Bath. Pyjamas. Teeth. Lights down. Story. Song. Blanket. Door to the gap. Next to each line was a box for who did it that night. It was our answer to the question every parent of a toddler asks when a second baby is coming: how to prepare a three-year-old for a new sibling? The health sources agree on the broad shape. Tell them in plain words, make the big changes early or not at all, expect some going backwards, and keep their routines. We took that last point literally and picked one routine the baby would not be allowed to touch. Bedtime.

How do I help my toddler with a new sibling?

Nothing on the sources' checklist is clever. The American Academy of Pediatrics, through its parent site, says: "If you can, finish toilet training or switching from a crib to a bed before the baby arrives. If that is not possible, put it off until after the baby is settled at home." Karen Spreng, a childbirth educator quoted by the Cleveland Clinic, puts the bed move "several months before the baby comes, if you can", so the child does not feel they are being "kicked out" to make room. The NHS Wales page says to keep up the toddler's routines and activities, and adds: "Encourage your toddler to help with the baby."

Our three-year-old had moved to a bed the winter before, so that part was done by accident. The part we had to design was the helping. A toddler cannot really help with a newborn, and a job that is pretend gets dropped the moment it is boring. So we gave her the one job that was real and that only she could do: she said goodnight to the baby first, before anyone else, every night. Her sister's cot was in our room and the goodnight took four seconds. It was still hers.

A toddler does not need the baby to change less. They need one thing of their own that does not change at all.

We chose bedtime over breakfast because bedtime is where a toddler's worry shows up. A child who has been fine all day will unravel at the moment the lights go down, the house goes quiet and the baby is the one being held. Protecting that half hour felt like protecting the whole day.

Will my toddler go backwards when the baby arrives?

Probably, and the sources say so plainly. The AAP page: "Expect your child to regress a little. For example, your toilet-trained child might suddenly start having 'accidents,' or they might want to take a bottle. This is normal and is your older child's way of making sure they still have your love and attention." NHS Wales lists the same signs and adds the instruction I needed most at 8pm: "This is completely normal behaviour, so try not to let it bother you and don't punish them."

Ours did not go back to nappies. She went back to the stall at lights out that we had spent the spring working out of her, and she started asking to be carried to bed, which she had not wanted since she was two. We carried her. The bedtime sheet meant that whichever of us was holding the newborn, the other one ran the same eight lines in the same order, and the carrying sat on the sheet as an unofficial ninth line for about three weeks before it dropped off on its own.

How long does it take a toddler to adjust to a new sibling?

None of the sources I read gives a number, and I will not invent one. The AAP, NHS Wales and Cleveland Clinic pages all describe adjustment as a process with normal setbacks, not a period with an end date. What I can give is our own sheet, which is one family and not research.

The honest reading of that table is that the hard part was the fortnight when the sheet broke, not the baby's arrival as such. The week we got the lines back into the same hands, the stall faded. I cannot say which caused which. I can say that having the sheet made it obvious what had slipped, and that "put bath back with Dad" is a fixable instruction in a way that "be more consistent" is not.

What is the 7-7-7 rule for kids, and does it help here?

It is a phrase doing the rounds on short video. The Australian Psychological Society describes it as: "Allocate seven minutes in the morning, seven minutes after school or work and seven minutes before bedtime for dedicated screen-free time with each child." Its chief executive, Dr Zena Burgess, also says in the same piece that it "isn't a formally validated concept in psychology, and there's no strong research base showing that those exact time blocks lead to better developmental outcomes", while allowing that it "can still be useful as a simple framework".

I would read it as a reminder, not a rule. The seven minutes before bed is the only block of the three we already had, and it is the one the sources keep circling. The AAP page says to "make an effort to spend some time alone with them each day"; NHS Wales says the older child still needs one-to-one time so that they do not feel forgotten. The story is where our one-to-one time lives, and the baby stays out of it. We read the same book for most of those twelve weeks, a pass-it-on story called The Longest Yawn where a yawn moves from a bear to a fox to a rabbit to an owl. Around week four she started adding a page of her own at the end, where the yawn goes to the baby. Nobody suggested it.

That is the part the checklists cannot give. The bed move, the potty timing, the goodnight job, the sheet in the cupboard, all of that is preparation, and it matters. The adjustment itself happened in the one place we kept exactly the same, when she decided on her own that the baby belonged in the story.

Sources

• Children and new siblings · NHS 111 Wales
• Preparing Your Older Child for a New Baby: How to Help Siblings Adjust · HealthyChildren.org, American Academy of Pediatrics
• Baby on the Way? Here's How To Prepare Siblings for Their Arrival · Cleveland Clinic Health Essentials (Karen Spreng, RN, FACCE, LCCE)
• APS in the Herald Sun: 7-7-7 Rule of parenting · Australian Psychological Society (Dr Zena Burgess)