When it comes to telling your stepchild that they are about to have a new brother or sister a million questions whizz through your head; will they be happy? Will they be angry? Will they be jealous? Will they feel pushed out/unloved?

With Curly all of these questions went through my mind but we needed to be sure that everything was OK with our baby before breaking the news to Curly. He was only five years old himself so we didn’t want to be telling him one week that he was going to be a big brother, only to tell him a few weeks later that it wasn’t to be.

At the 12 week scan we were told that all was well, our baby was growing well and I felt in good health and quickly started to develop a bump.  We talked about when we would tell Curly our news and decided that we would leave it as long as possible. Curly gets excited easily so we were worried that if we told him too soon we would be asked every week if the baby was going to be here yet!

When the time came for me to buy my first real maternity clothes we decided that the bump couldn’t be hidden any longer.  We sat down with Curly and Hubby said to him, “if you could have anything in the world what would it be?”  We seriously expected him to say “a baby brother/sister” but Curly looked all excited and mentioned something about Lego Star Wars. So, I jumped in with, “not toys sweetheart, something for our family”.  His face turned serious as he thought for a moment and then slowly a smile spread across his face . . . “a baby brother or sister” he replied.  Clever chap! We confirmed his thoughts and then he responded with, “I thought you were looking a bit fat” – nice!

Curly was excited throughout the pregnancy and loved talking to bump and reading stories to it. We made sure that we told him that our new baby would never mean a change in our love for him, we told him that it would mean that we loved him even more because we would love him as our son but we would love him that bit extra because we knew he would make us proud as a ‘big brother’.

When Little Bean was born, Hubby took Curly out to buy her a special gift and of course we had already bought him a special gift from Little Bean but he wasn’t bothered about the gifts, he just wanted to hold his new baby sister.

Two years later we welcomed Beanie Boy into the family and once again Curly made us proud – he has his moments with them, like all siblings do, but on the whole he is an amazing big brother. To see the three of them playing together is very heart warming.

It’s funny how children adjust to their lives too, Little Bean rarely knows the days of the week yet she always knows which day ‘Bro’ is coming to stay and gets very excited at the prospect of seeing him.  Upon arrival he is bombarded by big hugs from his little sister and brother before he even gets the chance to take off his coat or put his school bags down. He helps them both with their tea and reads them bedtime stories before having time with Hubby and me once the tiddlers are in bed.

We have never called them half-brother/half-sister, they are simply brother and sister – that’s all there is to it really.

Being a step-parent has been a tough journey at times but only 5% of that difficulty has come from Curly himself; he has adjusted very well to his family changes and is a gorgeous, caring and loving little boy who continues to make us all proud.  He doesn’t ask for much but he gives an awful lot.