Personalized Books for a New Sibling: Making Room for the Baby in the Story

A new baby is usually very exciting.

For the adults.

For the child who was already there, things can be slightly more complicated.

There is suddenly a small person in the house who cries a lot, needs to be held constantly, occupies a surprising amount of everyone's attention, and does not appear to understand any of the established household rules.

When my son was a baby, my daughter was two. She loved him, but she was also two. Both of those things could be true at the same time.

So I made her a book.

A new sibling is not really one problem

There are plenty of children's books about becoming a big brother or big sister. Many of them are lovely. But they tend to tell roughly the same story: a baby is coming, the older child learns what babies are like, and eventually discovers how wonderful it is to be a big sibling.

That may be exactly the story a child needs. It also may not be.

One child is excited about the baby but confused about why Mama cannot play right now. Another is jealous. Another likes the baby perfectly well but would strongly prefer that the baby stop touching their things. One child wants to help with everything. Another wants absolutely nothing to do with any of it.

Some children worry that there is now less room for them. And plenty of children move between all of those feelings before lunch.

That is where a story made for one particular child becomes more interesting.

The story can start with what is actually happening

When you make a personalized book about a new sibling, you do not have to begin with the lesson. You can begin with the child.

What have they noticed? What has changed? What are they excited about, and what irritates them? What do they misunderstand? What do they seem worried about when they think no one is watching?

Maybe they keep trying to wake the baby because they want someone to play with. Maybe every toy has suddenly become the one toy the baby is absolutely not allowed to touch. Maybe they have started asking to be carried again.

Those details are useful because they make the story recognizable. A generic character can learn to become a good big sister. Your child can recognize the particular absurdity of trying to build a block tower while a crawling baby repeatedly destroys the bottom floor. That is a different kind of story.

The older child does not need to be the problem

This matters.

A story about a new sibling can very easily become a disguised lecture. The child is jealous. Jealousy is bad. The child learns to share. Everyone hugs.

That is tidy. It is also not necessarily how being three works.

The older child has not done anything wrong by noticing that their world changed. If Dad used to read three books at bedtime and now sometimes has to settle a crying baby, that is a real loss from the child's point of view. They are not imagining the difference.

A useful story does not have to tell the child that those feelings are mistaken. It can let the feelings exist and then give the child somewhere to go with them.

Let the adventure do the teaching

Suppose the lesson underneath the book is that love does not get divided when a family grows. You could simply have a parent explain that. Children have heard adults explain things before.

Or the story could make the idea physical. Maybe the older sibling discovers a strange lantern that can light another lantern without becoming dimmer itself. Maybe two tiny dragons both need help, and helping one does not mean abandoning the other. Maybe a castle keeps building new rooms whenever someone new arrives.

The lesson is still there. It just has something to do. That tends to work better than putting the moral in a speech at the end.

The baby can be a real character too

The younger sibling does not need to be a generic bundle wrapped in a blanket. Use their name. Describe what they look like. Include whatever peculiar baby behavior has already become part of family mythology.

Maybe they laugh every time the dog walks past. Maybe they have enormous cheeks. Maybe they are determined to eat books rather than read them. Maybe the only sound they currently contribute to a conversation is “BA!”

Those details matter for the same reason they matter when describing the older child. The story becomes about these two children. Not Big Sister and Baby. Aurelia and Cyrus. Years later, that difference may matter even more than it does now.

You do not have to manufacture an emotion the child does not have

A story does not need to produce the correct emotional response. If the child is genuinely delighted with their new sibling, wonderful — build around that. If they are unsure, let them be unsure. If they love the baby but also occasionally seem interested in returning them to the hospital, the story has room for that too.

Children are allowed to have mixed feelings. Characters are more interesting when they do as well.

The goal is to give the child a safe version of the situation that they can look at from the outside.

Sometimes the story becomes a way to talk

This was one of the things I noticed after I made the first book for my daughter. The book itself was useful. But so was the conversation around it.

Talking directly to a small child about jealousy, fear, sharing, or attention can become strangely serious very quickly. Talking about what a character did is easier.

Why do you think she got mad? What should she have tried? Was the baby actually trying to bother her? What would you do?

The child is ostensibly discussing someone in a story. Of course, when that someone has their name, their hair, their family, their favorite things, and a suspiciously familiar problem, the distance is fairly small. But sometimes a little distance is enough.

It also captures a very specific version of the family

There is another reason I like this kind of book that has less to do with teaching anything.

Children change quickly. Babies change absurdly quickly. The relationship between a three-year-old and her baby brother exists for a very short time. Soon the baby walks. Then talks. Then grabs things intentionally instead of accidentally. Then develops opinions.

A book made during that first strange period captures the family while the relationship is still brand new. That makes it something slightly different from an ordinary children's book. It is also a record. This was who you were. This was who your brother was. This was the weird little problem that seemed enormous at the time. This was how we saw you.

The story does not have to be an adventure

There is no particular reason the story has to involve dragons or castles. The real-life situation can sit underneath almost any kind of narrative.

Two siblings can inherit a castle that only opens when they work together. A baby can accidentally keep ruining a wizard's spells, then turn out to be exactly what the final spell needed. An older sibling can discover that they are the only person who can understand what the baby is trying to say.

Or the story can stay completely ordinary. Breakfast. Bath time. A trip to Grandma's house. Trying to build something while the baby crawls through it. The adventure does not have to be enormous for the feelings underneath it to matter.

Tell the story that fits your children

If you are making a PageCub book for a child with a new sibling, the useful details are not complicated. Tell us about the older child. Tell us about the baby. Tell us what their relationship actually looks like right now — what has been difficult, funny, sweet, or strange.

And if there is something you hope the older child takes away from the story, tell us that too.

The rest can be dragons. Or castles. Or a perfectly ordinary living room occupied by one toddler, one baby, and considerably more noise than used to be there.

The important part is that the story belongs to them.