DD 2.5 has a new brother who arrived 6 weeks ago by c section. She has adjusted well to him, she is loving towards him and her games with dolls all revolve around him, so all good except for the occasional swipe at him because he is taking up my attention. She was upset at me not being able to lift her and having 'a sore tummy so we have to be careful' so DH did a lot more of the looking after her. But now I am better that helps. All normal so far...
DD has never been a great sleeper. She has a good bedtime routine and goes to bed fine. The issue is waking in the night and calling out and then having to be led back to bed. She can fall asleep within 5 minutes again normally. The last week or so things have escalated and last night she woke every hour wanting me and sometimes not settling for 45 mins! She is not ill. She has a gate on her door and sleeps in a toddler bed. She likes her room and her bed and her cuddly toys. So nothing is scary around her. I know this is all to do with sharing me and not her little world being turned upside down. She is either really lovely in the day or her tantrums reach epic levels. All normal at this age too? But the sleep deprivation and coping with whinging and screaming is proving to be really hard for me. She is in nursery 3 days a week (M, W, F) and nursery are also worried mainly about her lack of sleep. She loves it and loves seeing her friends but being over tired causes issues when she wakes from her nap there (she has been crying for me) and she falls asleep in activities. She normally has a 1-1.5hr after lunch nap (we tried cutting it out to see if she would sleep. It was not a good idea! She still needs it!) We have sought help from a sleep consultant a number of times since she was born and I have sought advice from anyone and everyone. It just seems she is an early riser usually any time from 5am and will wake in the night. It doesn't seem to have affected her development but I am concerned about her not sleeping properly. Waking once or twice is fine but nearly every hour last night while I am coping with a 6 week old is tough. Ironically, the 6 week old wakes only once or twice for feeds and then sleeps better than dd! (Oh how I wish he will continue to be a good sleeper) DH helps where he can but she will often have a meltdown in the small hours if it isn't me who goes to her but will eventually accept him settling her.
Tantrum we try to be consistent in the house with warnings for being naughty (hitting, throwing food etc) and then sitting on the naughty step (not sure it actually works), but around that there are lots of cuddles and trying to do family activities or give her special one to one time. However she will do things on purpose to get a reaction from me, like hit me, get told off and hit me again. Take a swipe at ds, shout No at everything etc I just feel I am cross with her a lot.... I am on my knees with tiredness and really look forward to nursery days as I can just do as little as possible at home with ds (I feel guilty about this as not spending time with dd) as the thought of terrible 2's etc fill me with dread. We try to limit activities on her home days to 1-2 things a day so she doesn't get over tired. I am even thinking being at work is easier that all of this due to being so tired.. I should be enjoying my mat leave with both ds and dd!!!! Sleep seems to be the main issue here, but the meltdowns are also cause for concern. (The neighbours must hate us..) We over analysed sleep forever in our house so stopped doing it to try to be less negative, but the last week has been hell.
I know things have got worse due to her world changing.. If you have managed to read this far does anyone have advice on how to make things better? Should I approach things differently?