Oh goodness I'm hoping some of you knowledgable people can help, either with some ideas on helping the baby to settle or just some ideas on things to make me able to cope with this!
DS is 6mo and up until quite recently has really been a dream with his sleeps. For naps, I would put him in his cot, walk out and he'd grizzle a bit, go back in and rub his chest for no more than 30 secs or so til he was quiet, walk out again and he'd go off to sleep! At bedtime I'd just feed til sleepy, put him down and he'd settle off to sleep quite happily - not even any crying! Amazing.
But it's all gone really pear shaped and he just can't settle anymore. I just don't know how to deal with it as I have a 2.5yo DD, so when I am in with DS trying to settle him down, she is constantly coming in and talking and stuff so of course he'll never settle like that. During the day I quite often plonk her in her highchair with some colouring, or even food and go and deal with him, which sometimes works and sometimes results in her getting bored and calling for me or chucking her breakfast all over the place!
But bedtime is a total nightmare. DS is clearly tired and can't cope with staying up whilst I put DD to bed so he needs to go down first, but I can't leave him to settle anymore so what do I do with DD? She's already been looking at videos on my phone while I feed him so her patience with that is wearing thin. I try leaving her with some books and toys, but she just comes into my room, usually just at the point when DS is dropping off, thereby waking him up and we start again from scratch! I can't put her to bed any earlier as she goes at 7 now and often is a bit of a pickle with bedtime as we're in the process of nap dropping, so when she's had a nap she is often not tired enough even at 7.
I'm also aware that in order to get him quiet as quickly as possible so I can deal with DD, I've started rocking him and rubbing him right to sleep, whereas I used to do it til he was sleepy and then let him settle off on his own. So I'm probably making the situation even worse by giving him a nice big prop to rely on to get to sleep!
I just really don't know what to do, but am sure that plenty of people have the same situation, so how do you cope?!
Please or to access all these features
Please
or
to access all these features
Join our Sleep forum for tips on creating a sleep routine for your baby or toddler.
Sleep
Desperate! Getting baby to sleep with toddler around
31 replies
blushingmare · 25/11/2014 19:40
OP posts:
Don’t want to miss threads like this?
Weekly
Sign up to our weekly round up and get all the best threads sent straight to your inbox!
Log in to update your newsletter preferences.
You've subscribed!
Please create an account
To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.