Bringing home a new child, whether he is a baby, toddler, school-aged child or teenager, is a huge event in a family. For my next few posts, I will be offering up advice and sharing tips to help ease the adjustment for you, your new child and your family. These tips will be geared towards families adopting children of all ages, and for families adopting both domestically and internationally.

My tip for today is to prepare. There are things you can to do emotionally prepare for your child's arrival, and there are things that you can do to physically prepare for your child's arrival, all of which will help make life easier once your child does arrive.

Emotionally prepare -

- Read those books! I can not tell you how many adoptive parents I know who go out and buy all of the right books while they are waiting for their child to come home, and then put them on a shelf and don't read them when they have the time to do so. In reality, the chances that you are going to have time to sit down and read a book with a new child in the home are slim to none, and let's face it, if you don't read the books, they are not going to be any help to you.

So read the books. Read books relevant to adopting a child your child's age. Read books related to transracial adoption. Read books on attachment. Read books related to any special needs your child might have. By reading them beforehand, you will be prepared for many of the things you may experience once your child is home. Book mark pages that you want to be able to reference quickly if needed, and leave the books somewhere that you can get to them easily once your child is home.

- If you have other children, prepare them for how your new child may act. Prepare your kids that babies won't be much fun to play with at first. Prepare them that their new sibling may be very clingy to you, may not know how to share, may throw horrible tantrums and may not be very happy with life at first. If you are adopting internationally, prepare your kids for the fact that your child will not know much (or any) English. All of these things can be challenging for siblings of a new child, but if they understand beforehand that they may occur and have an idea of why, it makes things easier.

Help your kids put away (or put up) special toys that could get broken, and let them know that even though their new sibling will need a lot of mommy and daddy's time, that there will always be time for them as well.

- Talk to other adoptive parents and listen to what life was like for them in the early days with their new child. Of course everyone will have different experiences, but if you talk to a good amount of adoptive parents (especially ones who have adopted children the same age as your child and from the same place/situation) you will get a good idea of what you can expect.

- Line up support. Find family members, friends, neighbors, etc. that will support you in the challenges of the early days. Have someone that you can call when you are completely exhausted, your house is a mess, you can't get anything done and you need a good cry. Have someone that you can call to help with your other kids or bring you a meal or whatever it is you may need.

On one of the forms our adoption agency sends, it has adoptive parents answer the question, "Who can you call when you need support?" and advises parents to really think about who they can call when they need to call someone.

- Strengthen up your marriage (if you are married). Adding a child to the family can be a stressful time, and parents often have less time for each other than usual. In our busy family, Josh and I have things scheduled so we always have some quiet time together at lunch, and a couple of hours together most nights once the kids go to bed (nice and early). When we have a new addition, he or she is usually sleeping with us, is usually really clingy to me and usually is sleeping great like the rest of the kids, so Josh and I often find our "alone" time compromised for at least a few months.

Before your child comes home, spend some extra quality time with your spouse. Go on dates, talk a lot and really connect and make sure your marriage is as strong as possible.

In my next post I will offer some tips on how to physically prepare for a new arrival.