Toddler waking baby during naps

[mamablondie33]

I don’t even know what I can do anymore but I am willing to try anything. I have a 3yo and a six mo baby, and my toddler is frankly driving me insane when the baby is napping.

We have a good routine for baby’s naps and she now goes down for them with no fuss. But my toddler won’t keep quiet enough to let the baby sleep for the time she needs and I’m beginning to worry about her development/overall well being.

It’s the one part of the leap from 1 to 2 that I just can’t crack and with lockdown we can’t even head to soft play etc to let baby sleep in a pram. Starting to go a little crazy over this!

Where is your baby having her naps? I've got a 3 year old and a almost 4 month old who isn't sleeping long periods of time. I thought it was because of my toddler but I've tried baby upstairs and she's still only sleeping for about 20-30 mins.

@FiloFaxx upstairs, but we are in a small house and the toddler is loud - stomping, tantrums the lot. Just cannot do a thing quietly. We have had some issues with lack of independent playing since lockdown last year, just has to be stuck to me constantly. I’m just finding it so draining :(

I have a dog who barks at everything and kept waking my baby up so I bought a sound machine and it drowns out all the household sounds. Worth a try?

@Vicky1989x this is a good idea actually! We use a white noise toy but wondering is it too quiet now you have said this x

@mamablondie33 this is the one I have and it’s honestly the best thing I’ve ever bought!

www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08612VF5N/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_fabc_8DGG1NVEKGA53DNZTF0S?psc=1&_encoding=UTF8&tag=mumsnetforu03-21

@Vicky1989x Thank you so much! This is a great idea I will definitely give this a go!

I think trying to keep your older child quiet can be adding a lot of stress. Babies nap when they are tired no matter was around them, probably it is not the toddler who is waking up the baby.

We have a noisy household but took the active decision to let baby get used to the noise rather than keep everything quiet for him. He woke up sometimes at the beginning but if we didn’t pick him up straight away he would quickly fall asleep again. I understand however that in some special cases, some babies are hyper sensitive to noise though.

Just get a white noise app on your phone or iPad and turn it up to the max (on a tablet this is really loud) Drowns out most noise we find