Advice from mums: How to balance time with your newborn and older kids

Introducing a newborn to its older sibling is one thing; making family time work for different ages is quite another.

Parents have enough to be doing when a new baba arrives, but it's important to make older siblings feel included and involved right from the start. Blogger and Youtuber Louise Pentland is navigating that tricky time right now. She's already mum to six-year-old Darcy and recently gave birth to her second child, a girl she named Pearl. Louise reached out to her 2.4 million Instagram followers last week to ask for advice on balancing spending time with both older children and newborns.

"Took my big girl to the local play centre tonight for some much needed DarcyTime," Louise wrote. "She's pretty bummed that Pearl doesn't do any actual playing yet so despite the sore tits&bits situ (much better than last week, on the mend at last hurrah!), I sat happily being fed plastic play food and being in Darcy's 'cafe'. Fine dining at its best! "Mums of 2+, I want to know, do you find things all your humans enjoy and group it or do you make time for individual time? How do you balance this?"

Her fans shared their experiences of making it work, including getting the older sibling to help with the new baby and spending one-on-one time with them away from the baby. "I included my older in helping with her sister, getting diapers, throwing them away, holding her sisters toes while I breastfed (that was her favorite) and that helped my older daughter to feel 'better' about her sister not being able to play." "I do a bit of both, we find lots of things to do together and then when I can I take them each on their own and have some special 1:1 time with them." "I think it’s important to spend time with the older child individually. Main reason being, they are acutely aware of the huge adjustment, and need the reassurance that they’re still loved/valued and that you want to spend time with them too and are not more interested in the new baby." "My two have a big gap (nearly 5 years apart). You eventually find a balance. The little one is def dragged to a lot of big bro's things but we get solo time when the biggest is as school. Then I aim for a date with the big one at least once a week. It tends to sort out." "A day every now and then just the two of ye will make Darcy feel like she's also getting all that attention and special time that little sister is getting too. Sometimes its also nice not to have to share time with a parent, every now and then." Read more of the other mums' advice here. How did you manage becoming a mum to more than one? Let us know in the Facebook comments.