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Matt + Ileana:

First of all, congratulations on the impending birth of your daughter!!! There's no better event in life than the birth of a child! My suggestion, although I'm no expert other than the fact that I'm raising two bilingual + bicultural children ;) – would be that you talk to her only in Spanish, if it's something both of you can do comfortably without feeling weird, which I'm guessing it will be from the way you describe your own language skills and the fact that you live en el D.F. Once you move back to the States – and I don't know where that'll be – Ana will be surrounded by English and will, without a doubt, pick very easily pick it up. In fact, Spanish will become the language you need to really worry about once she starts school, unless of course, you're able to send her to an immersion one. 

I can only speak from my own experience with my 3.5-year-old daughter who was only exposed to Spanish (at home and with my family) until she turned 2 and started going to preschool twice a week. At first, I really worried that she wouldn't survive since she didn't even know how to say 'please' or 'thank you', but it didn't take long for her to figure it all out and even though today her vocabulary is much larger in Spanish than it is in English, I don't worry about it and I haven't changed our Spanish-only rule because I know one day soon, she'll be exposed to so much English that she'll probably go through a phase where she'll refuse to speak Spanish.

Others might tell you to use the OPOL method, where you'll speak English to Ana and Ileana will speak Spanish to her, but I think that should be used when there's simply no other choice – which is not your case. Although I know of families who are successful doing this, the reality is that it's extremely hard and according to some experts, sometimes the language spoken between the parents (which is usually English because only one of them is bilingual) is the stronger one for their children.

Regardless of the road both Ileana and you decide to follow, keep in mind that although consistency is key, you also have to be flexible and be ready to adapt if and when your situation changes. Once Ana's born, you'll figure out what the most comfortable and doable option is for your family. We're so glad you found us and hope you continue to come back for you will surely find answers to lots of the typical questions we ask ourselves while in this journey. I suggest you check our archives, particularly our Ask an Expert series for answers to a lot of these.

You should both be commended for making a conscious decision to gift Ana with bilingualism! As you both know, it's a great asset to posses! Happy New Year and lots of luck!

Roxana

Our son is 3-1/2 now and despite having so much Spanish around him all the time, his English is dominating. I do not regret that I taught him English, because my parents don't speak Spanish. But recently I have been speaking to him in Spanish more. We're not sure how English came to be so much stronger for him. Maybe kids have a sort of radar that figures out what is the majority language of the culture when they get to a certain age (like they seem to have a way of seeing so many things you wouldn't think they'd notice). It may be that although I've never been the one spending more time with him, I've always been the one talking and interacting with him more. His dad is more the John Wayne type, strong but silent :-)

When he knows people only speak Spanish he's quite willing to speak Spanish with them. But if he suspects or knows they understand English, that's the way he wants to go. He's willing to repeat what he said in Spanish when asked. But that makes all the conversations with his father very, very clunky. Some days my husband works that way and some days he just gives in and doesn't ask him to repeat. The conversations are not going to get less complicated as he gets older.

We'd assumed when it was time for school he'd attend the very excellent free public elementary 2 blocks from our house. But now we are just about convinced we need to get him into a dual-language school.

It's amazing how much he selects English even though he is exposed to Spanish a LOT. We have even been on vacation with family in Mexico three times over the last couple of years. Seems like the Spanish is going to need all the boost it can get if we want him to be actually able to read and write in it.