To ask my toddler to be quiet while the baby is sleeping?

[postmanshere]

Please be kind, trying to navigate this. My 3 year old is loud. All the time. Especially when she plays. I have a 5 week old who is constantly being woken up by her. I feel mean telling her to be quiet because she’s just being a kid and she didn’t ask to have to share her space with a baby. But it’s exhausting consistently having to put the baby back to sleep after she’s woken up 30 seconds after I put her down. And telling the toddler to be quiet every two minutes, only for her to have a tantrum over it. Is it unreasonable to request quiet?

The baby will soon get used to sleeping through all the noise.

Yes, this.

Ive had your exact problem with both my 2nd and 3rd babies OP. It gets much easier as they get bigger, need to sleep less and once they're 6m+ and you can put them safely in another room.

I agree with you at only 5 weeks old. Should def not be in a different room.

At 5 weeks old? Really goes against all advice from the professionals.

What kind of noise? Shouting or squealing a 3 year old can understand not to do. If general noisy toys etc could you try and encourage puzzles, play doh, drawing while the baby sleeps. As others said the baby will get used to it and so will the toddler, it's still early days yet for all the family members to adjust.

Oh OP, solidarity, I remember those days!!

I don't think it's unreasonable to try and foster a calm environment, as long as your expectations for success are age appropriate (IE low). As others have said baby learning to sleep through a cacophony of noises might be beneficial in the long run. Though my youngest never acquired that skill, she's 4 now and still the lightest sleeper I've ever encountered.

Things which worked for us were a basket of quieter activities which were only available during nap times, the promise that when the baby was asleep we'd do something together (DS would choose the activity before the nap and then we'd do it together once baby was asleep). DS learned pretty quickly if he was quiet for a spell then he got 1 on 1 mum time as long as baby was asleep. Activities were usually something quiet like a story or a puzzle as DD was in the room with us. Secondly I invested in a yoto, which was a game changer for trickier naps which took longer than the average toddler attention span. As DD got older and the naps grew longer DS and I got even more time, it was a nice routine. The 'sleep when the baby sleeps' notion was well out the window though, not that that ever really worked the first time either!

Hope you find a rhythm soon!!

This. It’s not fair on the toddler to be expected to be quiet while the baby is in the same room. Especially if it’s after lunch and they’ve had an energy boost. Try reading, puzzles, quieter games to do with the toddler. (Rather than expecting them to play on their own, which you probably aren’t doing). Find an activity that they really enjoy and keep it for nap time.

edited to add but don’t expect the impossible

Babies of that age nap a lot. It’s not fair or reasonable to expect the 3YO to be quiet that often. If you want to put the baby down in the same space then you need to make it the opposite end of the room, maybe also play white noise near them, then set the toddler up with an activity to keep them occupied in their space away from the baby. You might have to do this with her rather than expecting free play.

Could the baby not be in a neighbouring room and you pop in and out? Same room needs some flexibility. It is about not leaving a baby unsupervised or seen for long periods, not literally in the same room.

So no wonder the little one is being woken up!
As long as shes in a well ventilated room with only a light covering (or none at all) door closed with a baby monitor to reassure you - she will be absolutely 100% fine.
Then you and your other kiddo can go downstairs etc for her to play. Problem solved.

Have you tried playing white noise while baby sleeps?.can help them to sleep through the other noise, hard for toddler to stay quiet (I know how hard it is though!)

I hear you, OP.

We did a few things:
Baby in sling which meant the noise didn't seem to disturb her as much.
Contact nap with baby and tv or yoto on for eldest. Yes it was more tv than I'd ideally want her to have, but making sure the baby got a good nap was also important for all our sanity.
We always had white noise on during naptime.
Buggy naps so the eldest could burn off steam at the park and baby sleep in the buggy.

We basically did one of each every day!

We tried the quiet books/puzzles etc but DD2 never really took to the moses basket so that was harder for me to do whilst always holding the baby.

For a terrible few months, DD1 was still napping at the exact time DD2 was not, which made leaving the house especially painful.

Are you also maximising the eldest's 30hrs at nursery? I found that helped as it meant there was time in the day when the baby wasn't being disturbed and could get a good sleep in.

Please don't move baby to their own room yet as some pp are suggesting. It goes against all the safe sleep advice, which is especially important when its so hot!

My oldest memory is my mum trying to keep me quiet when my baby brother was sleeping. I tried really hard, but than I accidentally dropped some rattling toy and she told me off.

So yes, you can try, but don't expect it to really work. The three year olds aren't that coordinated to not make noise - from excitement, forgetting themselves, stumbling, something will always happen.

Portable white noise machine is very helpful with a baby and a toddler. Think the one I have is called the Lumi and it has a little clip to attach it to the pram. Lifesaver.

Too hot this week but I used to let the baby sleep in the sling on me so they weren't bothered by the toddler being rowdy.

I had 5 children and as babies they slept in a carrycot in the lounge in the day with normal family noise going on around them (hoovering, children playing, tv etc) I think if you tiptoe around a sleeping baby you're making a rod for your own back! My BIL and SIL used to insist on having the tv on mute with subtitles when their PFB was sleeping and you weren't allowed to flush the loo 🙄 I wouldn't allow screaming and shouting anyway but a normal amount of noisy toddler behaviour shouldn't stop a baby sleeping. If your toddler screams and shouts excessively, remove her to another room until it stops. Can you explain to her that if she's quieter while you get baby to sleep then you can do something fun with her just the two of you? Maybe keep a few special toys specifically for use when baby is sleeping and you can play with her.

My 7 year old autistic son always makes a racket around his sleeping baby brother, luckily it doesn't wake him up but still annoying

Your toddler doesn’t get it so you are setting her up to fail. Use tgat time for one to one quite play - do jigsaws/colouring/ reading. Or stick tv on or iPad and headphones time

The second one gets use to noise and being moved around more than the first bc you have things to do and places to go that you didn’t have with the first They get used to it bc they have to.

No it isn’t, it’s about breathing regulation which requires you to be in the same room.

its nothing to do with being supervised

Unfortunately this wasn't true for either my second or third children. I naively thought the same as you until I had them, but they just both just barely napped until I could safely put them in a separate room for naps. It was really hard and they both cried a lot from struggling to nap. It was much better post 6 months both times once I started putting them in our bedroom upstairs in their cotbed for some of their naps. Although both did just mostly nap in the pram to be honest.

Are you getting out with your kids OP? As to be honest all my kids have mostly napped in the pram until they were around 9-12 months and could go down more routinely in their beds for naps.

4 kids 3 under 3 and never once would I stop the noise, if baby can't sleep then that's because you keep picking up etc. Youngest will have her naps in bedroom or fall asleep in living room and the other 2 will play no problems

Yeah. I wouldn’t listen to people saying put a 5 week old baby in another room especially when it’s 30 degrees.

Five week olds can sleep through anything if they are tired.

Like ANYTHING.

This isnt a toddler issue unless the toddler is poking the baby.

I used to play quiet games with my 3 year old when the baby was napping - jigsaws, painting, etc but expecting that there would still be some excitable toddler noise! It's good to get the baby used to noise when sleeping anyway

It's the toddler's home and it's not her sleep time.
Her life has been turned upside down enough as it is. Leave her alone.