Hi all, hoping for some more lovely words of wisdom from you all. I am sure I've read threads about this before, but "age" and "gap" are both too short to be counted as words by the search engine here!

There will be an 8-year gap between DS and his sibling. I'm not worried about sibling relationships - they are what they are, and more on personality than age gaps. I hope they'll get on, of course, but the age difference doesn't determine that.

I am thinking about how I'll parent the age gap.

DS is at school while I'm home with the baby, that's fine. But school run/feeding? How am I going to pick him from school up with a tiny newborn too? He wants to walk home from school on his own, but he'll only be 8. School run traffic is manic and there's one junction to cross where loads of parents park.

I plan on keeping his life fairly similar (only with a SAHM not a working mum) and he's excited about the baby, but how am I going to do it? Aside from "well, the baby sling still works" and "I'll feed before we set out", I have no idea how to juggle this! DS wants to pretty much be a third parent to the baby from how he talks, but I don't want that. Not for him, for me, for the baby... it just doesn't seem right (although I acknowledge I'll appreciate the help and he'll lose the complete interest he displays now after a while).

So how did other mums of large age gap siblings rock this? Thanks for your thoughts.