Two children, clingy baby, bedtime drama and mum guilt

[Almosteloping]

Help! Two children - 4yo DD and 14 mo DS. The baby is so clingy with me and has been from day one. As he's getting older, it's starting to manifest in possessive behaviour - he'll push my daughter away if she's cuddling me or cry and whine when she sits in my lap. Obviously, he gets a very firm "no" and will be moved if he is physically aggressive, but it's horrible for my daughter and I feel terrible.

This dynamic is a particular problem at bedtime and I'm desperate to fix it. Because I breastfeed, I ended up doing all of the baby's bedtimes and my husband puts our daughter to bed (both go to bed at the same time). Again, I desperately want to be able to read my daughter stories and put her to bed, but my son is hysterical if my husband so much as picks him up at bedtime. I feel so sad and guilty that my eldest is having to make room for her younger brother all the time - I'm sure it must be affecting her in some way. It's certainly upsetting me - I feel so guilty, and I miss having time with my daughter that's just the two of us.

Can anyone relate to this? If this is familiar, what did you do?

Please no unkind comments - I feel so guilty and sad about this dynamic and I really want to get things on a more balanced footing.

This is one of the toughest things about having a baby and a toddler. They both want you at bedtime.

If you breastfeed and DS isn't too heavy, can you set up in DDs bedroom with DS on your lap on a chair next to DDs bed, then you feed DS while reading DD her bedtime stories, let her settle off to sleep (feeding but otherwise ignoring DS) and then once she's asleep move DS into his cot.

Depending how well they both settle to sleep, or if they're in same or different rooms, you may want to try a few variations of this till it works. Eventually you and your DH can take turns so the other parent gets a night off.

We did this setup from birth to about 18months as I coslept the rest of the night with DC2 and DC1 was jealous. DC1 got bribed with special books to stay quiet so DC2 fell asleep quickly while feeding. We ended up moving DC2 into DC1s bedroom around age 2 after night weaning so I could read to tthem both at the same time.

Even now years later DC1 comes into DC2 bedroom and reads a book while I do DC2 bedtime story, then after DC2 is asleep we go to DC1 bedroom together for an extra 10mins before DC1 goes to sleep.

Two things that might be useful for you, they were for me.
First of all, I dropped the bedtime breast feed for the baby - it was the first feed to go. The baby had a bottle at bedtime (could be expressed milk) which meant someone else could do it.
Secondly, stagger the bedtimes. You could put the older one to bed first while DH is doing something with the baby. He could even take him out for a walk in the pram if he's likely to scream.You tell the baby this is big siblings special time with mummy and they will get special time later. Even if it's only for 5 minutes, the message that you are trying to be fair will come across to big sibling.

We have this issue as baby is breastfed and needs me to put her down, while 4 year old wants me to always do bedtime. We have got round it by staggering bedtimes so I can put him down while baby plays with DH and then come back and breastfeed her… we have actually now started taking it in turns to put out 4 year old down to bed as we were abit concerned about him always needing me which has also worked really well. Baby has been hysterical before while I’m sorting him out but DH tends to take the baby into the garden to ‘show her the stars’ etc which really helps calm her down, otherwise she does have to wait which sounds mean but I get abit worried about the impact or DS as he understands I’m leaving him for the baby… and she is with her dad rather than left alone. Obviously this just works for us, it’s so different with all babies