Just looking for some experiences really.
DS2 will be 3 when new baby arrives. Currently sleeps through most nights in his own cotbed in his room. However he's only 2 so he does wake up sometimes, and when he does, he is still very much reliant on me rather than DH. If he goes in and tries to settle him he will get more worked up until I appear. I can then normally settle him quite easily but if he's really unsettled or ill then the only way anyone gets any sleep is if he comes into our bed, where he sleeps between DH and me. There is a single bed in DS2's room where one of us can sleep with him but I find it really uncomfortable.
Planning to have newborn in converted ikea bedside cot, so in their own space if needed but accessible for breastfeeding etc. However it will be open permanently and not easy to take that fourth side on and off.
So I keep reading that when you have a newborn, the dad will go in and settle the toddler at night if they wake. But is this something that they have always been able to do, or something in response to the change of a new sibling and did that work fine?
DH very anxious not to have new baby and toddler in bed at the same time even in the bedside cot. But I am not really willing to not have some kind of safe co-sleeping arrangement at all. I don't think one of the purpose built co-sleepers where you can pull the side up and down will work for us because they all have a 9kg weight limit and DS2 was 9kg by 4 months old. So we'd end up buying two cots which seems excessive.
We do have a couple of other potential enclosed sleeping spaces (travel cot, cot style playpen, carrycot) we could move baby to if I needed to go and be with toddler in the night. Or if toddler came in. But realistically I don't see us wanting to move and potentially disturb a sleeping baby, I just think this is madness and won't be realistic.
I think the newborn will be fine either in the bedside cot with DH right at the other side of the bed (or on my side if he feels safer) or even with DS2 in the bed with us as long as DS2 is in between DH and I or on the other side of DH - DH worries about space - it is a king size so I think will be fine.
Just wondering what other people did and if their toddlers magically began to accept comfort from Dad, because DH going to DS2 seems like the most practical and safe solution to me.