Stepmoms - I need help!

[riogirl71]

Hi girls!
I was wondering if there are any stepmoms out there that can help me. DH and I are supposed to tell my 11 year old SD tonight that we are pregnant. We are very excited about it but unfortunately I don't think she will be.

Her mother and grandparents treat her like she is the center of the world, which means that if all attention is not focused on her at al times or if we are not entertaining her at all times, she gets really upset. Even when she has friends over when we pay attention to her friends she does not like it at all. She is with us 40% of the time or less.

The other issue is we are making her room the nursery and moving her to another room which will be major drama (100% baby trumps 40% time for the room we need, plus we plan on eventually putting 2 babies there and she will have her own room). Plus babies require lots of attention...

Anyway, any kind of help would be incredible!

Thanks!!!

[ogr1]

congradulations...

try and make the room change her idea.
and have her help decorate both rooms.

its hard ..\

but remember that she is still a kid and its not easy living at to different places

[gori]

I have a 11 yr old son, who is so........excited about the new baby. In the past, when we would talk it, he would not be so happy, may be he felt he would have to share his things/attention etc, but lately the idea has grown on him. Now, he is really excited about being the older brother, having someone little to play with, etc. But then he is not my step-son, which might make a big difference as you said. However, girls have more of maternal instincts. Depending on how it is presented to your SD, she may react differently. How about proposing it to her first, how wonderful it will be for her to have a younger sibling. Someone she can be the older sister to but does not have to share her room, toys etc. with. That's one advantage of having a big age gap - no sibling rivalry or much less! The idea in the previous note was also great, getting your SD involved in making the decisions, giving her the choices of choosing/selecting some things for the nursery. Truly getting her involved, will make her feel like a part of this, as opposed to feeling neglected.
Let me know how it goes!

[riogirl71]

Thank you girls for all the great advice. I had DH go into her room and talk to her, he explained that he would love her just as much and that things would change because babies do need lots of attention and that didn't mean the baby was more special it is just the way babies are. She was a little nervous about it, later we talked about her being a role model to her sister or brother and how important that is. She got a little more excited and called her firends. We haven't seen her since Thursday and we see her today. I hope her mom didn't poison it for her (her mom bad mouths us all the time, we never do it for her sake). We will wait a little to talk about the room change since we are leaving to see my family in a couple of weeks and we figure we talk about it when we get back. We will give her the options to decorate and everything. The nice thing is we have friends staying over to watch the house and they are moving into her room and she is moving out, so hopefuly the transition will be easier.

I think a child should be treated as a wonderful and special gift, but not made to think that the world is here to please/entertain/shower her with gifts. We constantly struggle by being the "bad guys" by trying to teach her morals, ethics, and the value of money. I know she must not like it right now but I think that letting her continue thinking she is the center of the world will only hurt her in life. I have had many interns at my job with the "me" attitude and entitlement and they do not work well with others.

Thank you again for all the advice!

[deepa100]

riogirl1,
I am not a stepmom but always thought that stepmomhood is like a one-way. You are expected to pitch in to raise the kid w/o having any expectations from the other side. i.e, you are not free to discipline the kid or ask her to call you mom etc. I think you are doing a great job, keep it up!