To consider leaving my 3yo to cry for me

[Newmama93]

I have my second DS 5 weeks ago, my first DS was sleeping with my husband consistently for about a year (to get this to happen I had to let him scream for 2 plus hours at bedtime with DH until he finally accepted it) and would call out for him when he woke during the night as I used to work nights. He’d randomly call out for me when I was pregnant and home and I’d go in occasionally (if I didn’t he’d have a meltdown)

since my baby has arrived I’ve been in my bedroom (where I’ve always been) with the baby and my DH has just moved himself into my sons room and attempted to just sleep there all night with him instead of him calling out and I’m also co sleeping with our baby so didn’t want an extra adult in the bed..

my first DS has started to wake up 3/4 times a night and scream for me, my dh leaves the room to get me and my son won’t have him back in. He would tantrum for over an hour so I’ve just been going in, he has a cuddle and goes straight back to sleep. Problem is, he wakes again and if it’s dh back in the bed and not me it starts again he’s screaming mummy where are you! He’s hysterical begging my DH to go and get me.

so I’m breastfeeding second DS every 2 hours by the time I settle and get him back to sleep my son is screaming for me and I’m running on probably an hour overall of broken sleep. I’m so exhausted. I don’t want to leave my son and have my husband say no you can’t have mummy it’s me in this bed as I don’t want him to feel replaced but I can’t have this anymore. I dread nights and bed. I’ve also been putting my son to bed instead of my husband now as he begs me too and goes on and seems sooo upset, but I want my husband to be able too as well.

also… sometimes to get some sleep I’ll go into my sons room while my husband goes in our room and settles baby so it’s probably confusing for us to say no mummy can’t come in this room then at times I am in there.

side note my son has always been a mummys
bot and preferred me but he’s really against his dad at the moment, won’t go anywhere with him without me etc which is such a shame.

what do I do!!!!

Stop making stuff up.

It might not seem fair to the 3 year old that baby gets mummy all the time and they don't but mummy is the one who breastfeeds and it's inevitable that their dad will have to take over sometimes.

I don't think it's reasonable for mum to be expected to burn herself out doing all wake ups or being unable to sleep because the bed has too many people. This varies per person but the extra work of expressing night bottles may be another unneeded extra job when looking after a baby and 3 year old during the day.

It's not letting them cry when they have got another parent to attend them and the family have to be able to cope as a whole. It can't be all about what a 3 year old wants to the detriment of their mum.

How many older siblings have you worked with once they exhibit behaviours like this around new babies?

This is where ‘I’m the childminder, I’ve worked with loads’ comes in, doesn’t it?

I am actually not arguing with you. I don’t have a problem with advice that differs from mine. I personally think that the older child would probably feel ‘pushed out’ irrespective of whether baby was in their own cot or not - we can’t expect three year olds to understand safe sleep guidelines - but that’s by the by.

I do think as I said above language like ‘reject’ ‘pushed out’ and so on is deliberately provocative. You are purposefully using it to maximise distress. And as someone has pointed out it isn’t accurate.

If you’re going to tell me that your vast experience means letting three year olds dictate where their siblings sleep I just don’t believe you.

You haven't a clue about me how many sick, bereaved, disabled children and families I've experience of, or the families I've supported over the years. Children always come first with me even if they are not my own I've delayed holidays to support others families so don't judge my motivation. Are you going to say the eldest is just being naughty next?
Parenting is exhausting and bloody hard work but the op asked if it was ok to leave a 3 year old to cry I don't believe that will help him feel part of the new family unit and children are not stupid mummy is in that room with baby I'm not allowed mummy at night ....as child is used to being with dad and since baby came is calling for mum he needs reassurance.
And yes I might be short today because I'm working with a child whose mum died last month.

You are missing my point completely.

I am not criticising the broad point which is that you believe the baby should go into his own cot because otherwise the three year old will be jealous. I don’t personally agree with it but I have no issue with it at all.

What I am taking issue with is words like reject, pushed out, which are deliberately chosen to try to upset the OP. How is it putting children first to upset their mother?

How do you explain to someone how a child is likely to feel without using those words?
By the way I have lots of qualifications including 2 degrees even though I'm a childminder many of us do.

It isn’t about your qualifications. I don’t doubt you are well qualified and I am sure you are good at what you do in RL. Online can be another matter and I suppose the trouble with MN (or any other forum for that matter) is that if you post regularly, especially on a specific topic it's easy to become quite overbearing and condescending without intending to, wanting to or even realising you are.

I will out a previous username here but I posted a thread wondering if I should change my DS nursery as he seemed so unhappy and unsettled at the time. I had been fretting a lot about it and was very worried and upset. I needed reassurance and kindness, just as this OP does. Intentionally or otherwise, you were really piling on the guilt, insisting DS behaviour was because of the new baby (it was an ear infection as it transpired.) You kept insisting my DS had been to six childcare settings, which was not true. You told me to ‘read up on attachment theory’ - even if I HAD changed his nursery the idea that a child would suffer attachment disorders because of changing childcare settings is such absolute nonsense I can’t even begin!

I am not bringing this up to settle old scores. I’m over it now, but I think that you should know that it was extremely upsetting. I came away from that thread feeling really shaken and questioning just about everything. It made me feel so incredibly awful. Words do that. They are very powerful and can have a profound effect on people. Using words like you have to the OP here like reject, push out, deny, are very telling - they are used purposefully to try to make her feel bad. I felt bad enough when DD was 3/4 months, I can’t imagine how I’d feel reading that when she was 5 weeks.

That is not fair, however driven it might be to protect children, when you attack the mother the outcomes for the child don’t tend to be good. It isn’t helpful or supportive to either the poster or her child. All it does it put people off posting because they know they will be made to feel just awful and then no children are being helped. Let’s not pretend there’s not a difference between ‘It is tough coping with two, I’ve found in my experience this method can work best’ and ‘older child is denied the same.’

I'd recommend taking cara babies website. It has a free blog, but also paid courses. It's partly a cry it out method, but with reassurance offered (6 months - 2 years). They also have the option to include a consultation phone call and can offer advice. Then they have a toddler course. It's a bit more difficult to teach toddlers to self sooth at night, because they're more willfull and can resist sleep for longer. But the idea is you go into the room but leave again, and you are consistent and boring when you go in.
Getting the newborn to take a bottle will be a proper life saver down the line, so that you can actually have more than 2 hours without a dependant. Consider getting the newborn into its own crib, there will be advice on taking cara babies, maybe get through the 3-4 month sleep regression then get it over with. In a few months you could be sleeping all night in your own bed with your husband!

I had similar issues, I ended up having both in with me. Toddler in the bed, baby in a cot with the side removed. It worked and they are both now in a room together. Husband was lucky, but I couldn't sleep if toddler was crying anyway. It's tough but doesn't last long.

Thank you!!

they think it’s a new thing they’ve suddenly got their dad when it’s been happening for like 1.5 years, way before baby but people
will read what they want too so no point going back and forth with those negative MNetters only trying to tear you down and be hurtful.

also, I bent my ass over backwards to help adjust my son and prepare him for baby! I took him out anytime my newborn would nap and also used the carrier all the time and have continued to go to the zoo, play outside. My older DS loves his brother and always asks for him to join. I am sooo aware it’s a huge adjustment for him. I just was after advice on what to do if he kept screaming for me multie times as I was wrecked, but I’ve just continued to go in and most nights now he hasn’t called out until 530am so he’s already improving.

@SpicyMoth has a point with the audio books, but we have a tonie box, and that's been brilliant! We still read a book, but then we pop the tonie on and that sends her off to sleep nicely. We had a phase like this with our daughter and it was hell in our house for months, we used to put her to bed, read her a story and then say something like 'I just need to pop downstairs I will be back in a minute' leave the room and then keep popping back in, it reassured her we were still there and she started falling asleep in her own, it was the ferber method essentially just a bit gentler.

Everyone in your house needs sleep, but it's a really tricky time to start making more changes for your son, there is a chance it will resolve itself in time once your 3yo is used to the new dynamic in the house. Is your newborn downstairs with you when your other son goes to bed? That could be a big cause of the problem, could you all go up together and one of you lay in bed with the baby and one lay in bed with your older son so he thinks the baby is in bed too? He's probably upset because he has to go to bed and the baby gets to stay downstairs with mummy.

We have a 3yo and 3mo. The 3yo was calling out for us quite often in the night, but now we’ve got plug-in nightlights in his bedroom and on the landing, and he is more happy to make the journey in to us and join us in our bed if he wakes up in the night. I prefer that because he then just goes back to sleep with no further involvement from us.
He does thrash about sometimes once he’s in there, but that’s a different issue!

I’d do the sleep training with the eldest now - it will be a tough few nights but we managed it , although we didn’t have the younger baby.

Alternatively, baby could go in a next to me crib on one side of you and the eldest could go on the other side in your bed. As long as he can’t kick the baby that should work.