Help needed now! Bedtime with toddler and screaming newborn WWYD?

[petaluma]

ds is just two with bedtime in half an hour. I also have a three week old dd who, despite feeding pretty much constantly all afternoon, is still hungry and screaming every time she s not latched on. We ve topped up before and she's settled but never this early. I'm on my own tonight so do I leave her to cry whilst i put ds to bed or give her a bottle? Any other suggestions??? Thanks, in desperation!

I would walk around feeding/carrying baby - then put her down near you whenever necessary ie undressing, putting DS in bath etc - I found stories could be read on our bed while feeding baby
or if DS could cope skip bath today just quite wash and then stories!
Its probably growth spurt with your DD BTW and bottle might interfere with supply

These are the hardest days I found so far with a toddler and baby (my two are 4 and 1). Thankfully it does get easier as they get older. I had several nights on my own with the two of them. First I'd put DS2 into the cot whilst I got DS1 into the bath, quickly bathed him and then got DS2 out of the cot and sat in the bathroom and fed him there whilst supervising DS1. Very stressful, but it does pass as they grow older. I let DS1 have about 10 mins in the bath to play, whilst feeding the youngest.

Once your eldest is ready to come out the bath I'd put the baby down in the cot for a few mins until you help your 2yo out, and then dry him, dress him in the room where your baby is so she doesn't get too upset. Then perhaps all head into your DS bedroom for story time? Good luck you'll be okay. It will get easier as the nights go on.x

Agree with An0therName. Skip the bath, reduce bedtime to its bare essentials. Feed her sitting on the bed reading DS stories, take her with you when you take him to his room (I lost pounds and pounds carrying my 18mo and my newborn around together all the time) and put her on the floor while you settle him. Let him say goodnight to her too.

Keep feeding DD - sounds like she's trying to get your supply up so for the next 24 hours you basically need to keep her latched on to you otherwise she'll carry on being hungry! I really wouldn't go with a bottle - the more you top up the more your supply will be affected.

If you are determined to keep on with BF, then I wouldn't top up with a bottle until about 6-7 weeks (easy to say when I don't have a screaming baby with me, I know, but it messes with milk production)

Cluster feeding at this age is normal. I'd leave DD whilst you put DS to bed - it's going to take time to get a bottle ready and give it to DD anyway, by which time you could have done a quick bedtime with DS and got DD on the boob.

Can you take DD up when you do bedtime, put pyjamas on and then tuck DS into bed and do story/whatever whilst feeding DD?

Do you have a ring type sling? Sometimes you can feed in those slings that go across your body, rather than the ones that sit on front.

Reduce bedtime to minimum. Wipe over, teethe, stories and bed. Most of that, if not all, can be done one handed while you feed the baby.

Good luck!

have you got a bouncy chair? move the bouncy chair around the house with you. so - latch baby on, help toddler undress with your free hand. all into the bathroom. baby in bouncy chair, toddler into bath. latch baby back on.
repeat to fade......baby comes with you while you do bedtime stories.
in fact my top tip would be that for the first 3mo you settle the toddler first, then the baby can cluster feed all night if need be.
You'll get the knack really, really soon.

Thank you so much for your replies. It wasn't as traumatic as it could have been as dd settled for a short time and ds was strangely more compliant than usual. I have to admit though that I'm not sure I can keep up this constant feeding - it's not been 24 hours, it's been the last week. The only time she remotely settles ( and it has to be in a sling) is in the morning after a feed. I'm in separate beds to dh at the moment so I can feed on demand during the night and apart from the morning, she is on me the rest of the time. Latch has been checked and is fine too. I'm really down and anxious about the whole thing - if it were just me and dd then ok, but ds is suffering from lack of attention. I try my best to spend quality time with him but tbh I'm so knackered that even that's hard. On top of it all, my coccyx cracked during the birth and I'm in a lot of pain all the time, particularly when sitting feeding. The anti inflammatories I need I can't take because I'm feeding!

As you can probably tell I'm a bit of a wibbling mess at the mo - trying to be a good mum to both my nippers but not really managing it with either :(

oh glad it wasn't too bad- I found bed time with 2 the hardest thing -you soudn like you are being a great mum - can you feed lying down - might be more comfortable and means you might get some sleep - could some one come and give you a hand in the day - friend/family?

anothername I've got another practice at it on Thursday...gotta love my dh for throwing me in the deep end! At least he doesn't properly go back to work for another two weeks, then it's bedtime on my own every night. Eek.

In terms of help, we have our next door neighbour two days a week now- she is a nursery nurse so we pay her as a sort of live out nanny. She used to look after ds when I was at work and although we've scaled down the days, we really want to keep her on. She's more than a nanny which is great. Ds adores her whole family and they him.

Because she finishes her day before the whole bedtime thing, we haven't established a pattern of how she can help. However, I think I ll ask her to either look after dd while I do an earlier bedtime routine with ds or vice versatile, so he is bathed and pj-ed up ready for me to whip him upstairs after Ben and Holly's Little Kingdom (hurrah for nick jnr and cbeebies) thus shortening the whole event.

Ps: yes, feeding lying down has been the only way I've kept any sort of sanity.

im in the same boat- I basically do normal betime whilst bfeeding- fookimg knackering! I have started bathing them together as it saves ne a job