I found Big Brother Now by Annette Sheldon (Magination Press, 2008) in the Parent-Teacher collection of picture books, and it does a wonderful job of explaining rather matter-of-factly the ways in which life changes for a preschool-aged boy when there is a new baby. The illustrations are realistic, and the text is too.
When baby is sleeping, Mommy is too tired to read Jake a story. Mommy feeds the baby and so Jake must wait for his snack. “Babies don’t know how to wait,” she explains. In the beginning, Jake wonders how he can be a big brother: he doesn’t know how. By the end, he can say with confidence that he’s getting better at the big brother stuff.
One night, we were eating dinner and my son said, out of the blue, “I am going to be good at the big brother stuff.” I’m sure it’s this book that has helped him gain that confidence. While it may be advanced for toddle- aged children to relate to, for my son’s age (four years old), it’s perfect. He’s old enough to be a helper, and he’s likewise old enough to be excited for that new role.
