Living in one bedroom house with new baby and toddler, finding hard to get a routine at night.

[marytheresa]

Hi

I only have one large bedroom which my husband and I share with our 4 year old daughter and 3 month baby.

When we had our first baby I found it no problem from when she was 6 weeks to start doing the bath bottle bed routine. But this time round I am finding it very difficult trying to get the 3 month old to settle at least into a sort of loose routine each night. The four year old usually sleeps by 9-9.30pm. So that is too late to start putting the baby down after her.I have tried putting the baby down first, but then he wakes up (like tonight)when we walk into the room, this is after a good feed and one hours sleep.

The four year old then gets upset because the baby is crying. I am not bathing the baby every night the way I did with the first onw, as I feel a bit at sea and overwhelmed when it comes to the night time routine. It is all over the place. I am fine during the day, but at night I don't know where to start.

I feel that I am never going to get them to sleep at the same time, and that the baby is never going to develop a good sleep pattern.

I would love some advice or feedback.

Kind Regards

Mary Theresa

[marriedtoagoodun]

Aww sweetie I just wanted to say hello. I do not have any magic answers as the times we have had to share one room with our children in a hotel etc it has been incredibly hard work. The one thing that springs to mind is that perhaps consider bringing the 4 year olds bedtime forward to give you more time to get the baby to bed and still have a little bit of 'me time'. Hope some wise mnetter gives you some further advice.

[FlyMeToDunoon]

When my yougest was that age I would feed her downstairs and then put her down in the moses basket in the living room with us. She went off quite well usually. This allowed the toddler to have her own bedtime routine, well with baby in tow sometimes.
The worst times were when DD3 cried through story time.
Later they did have a combined bedtime. DD3 would cry when put down but we assured DD2 she would stop eventually. Sometimes she did and sometimes she didn't. Sometimes DD3 had to be taken out of the bedroom to let DD2 get to sleep but it did get better.
DP and I have not had to share the same room as both of them though that must be hard.