How do you get your baby to sleep/breastfeed with a toddler around?

[bigbang]

I am really struggling with this at the moment. Dd is 4 months, ds 2.6. Up till now dd has been just falling asleep when tired even with noise, but has now got to the age when she is distracted.

I often feed her to sleep, and as she is dropping off or I am transferring her ds will shout/jump on her/just start chattering. He doesn't yet understand if he was quite for 10 minutes then we would have a couple of hours to play alone. So basically dd falls asleep and then is woken, takes longer to settle, woken again etc. This can go on for hours and she ends up so overtired she cannot sleep and ds gets upset as he wants my attention etc. The only other way to get her to sleep is a quiet dark room, but again impossible with ds around. He insists on jumping on the bed or climbing on me in normal toddler style.

We all end up tired, stressed out and upset. I have just managed to get an overtired baby to sleep in a dark room, but only after shutting ds in the living room (perfect safe btw) and calming her down. Ds was naturally upset. I don't know what to do really.

The other issue is with breastfeeding, we have been reading books and doing puzzles whilst I feed but again dd is being distracted now and will only feed in two minute bursts as ds is chattering and shoving her unintentionally. She gets frustrated and ds gets upset when I tell him to wait a minute.

It had been going so well up till christmas but I am starting to feel extremely stressed out. I keep finding myself pushing ds away while I try to feed/settle dd and I know that is not good but what else can I do?? I can feel this spiraling into a massive issue now, as ds has got extremely clingy. Any tips for keeping him quiet without shutting him out? He does love dd and loves to play and help with her when she is awake, I really don't want to change the way he feels and for resentment to build up.

Please any advice would be most welcome, this is getting us all down! Thanks.

Probably not the best advice in the world, but when I had ds, dd was 18 months, cbeebies was a godsend! I'd seriously limited tv viewing prior to ds's arrival, but the need to breastfeed etc. outweighed the supposed detrimental effects of tv watching in my opinion. Worked a treat! Obviously then gave dd lots of attention once bf was finished.

Hope you get more helpful advice than this

I'm also stuck with this situation at the moment. I'm finding that rewarding his quiet behaviour is really helping, but not with sweets as that increases the noise . Also found out my oldest really wants to be with the baby, so telling him when he can come to help, and letting him help whenever he can, means he's more ok about being good when I need him to stay away from the bedroom.
TV great idea! I let mine choose some special play to do once baby is asleep as an incentive.
If you can, get them out for a walk so baby can sleep in buggy.
Hope some of this helps.

Thanks for replies

The trouble with tv is it causes the same problem, he wants to sit with me and watch and talks to me about what's happening as he watches . I could try putting it on then leaving him in front of it while I settle dd in another room. Feels a bit wrong though!

Bustymcgee, he doesn't seem to understand this yet. I try to bribe him to stay quiet for a bit with doing stickers or something when dd is down but he wants me to do it now, and starts chanting "put in her baskernet mummy" thus waking her again . Or he forgets and suddenly blerts out 'look a frog' or whatever .

He is so helpful and loves to do things for her, including helping put her to sleep. I think walks might be the way forward, would be good to shift the post baby belly too! Thank you so much for answering, I am feeling quite alone at the moment

What about trying to get dd asleep in a wrap around sling and she might not be as easily distracted?

I could have written your posts - got exactly the same situation here! Right down to the wanting me to sit with him during TV and pass comment on it all (which on the one hand is good as at least he's not completely zoned out with it, but not helpful when DD is dropping off!)

No advice really,but just letting you know you are most definitely not alone

Will be watching this for ideas, another sympathy post here. Could NOT get ds to sleep this afternoon due to exact same situation and increasingly clingy dd. So hard isn't it.

4 months is optimum distracted mode. i had a 26 month old dd1 when dd2 was 4 months old and mightily distracted and i am afraid i put cbeebies on downstairs and went upstairs to feed and settle dd2.it usually lasted about 30 mins and then i was free to have some time with dd1 and settle her. it was hard hard work. another plan was a bit of a 6 oclock feed to keep dd2 going then settle dd1 have stories etc with dd2 still hanging around then settle dd2 afterwards. was vtough but the stage does pass!

So glad I'm not alone with this, DD2 is 8 weeks and sleep time for either of them is currently a disaster. So just another sympathy post but at least it gets bumped.

My ds was born in June when dd was 2.2. He did a lot of sleeping in the sling or buggy (obviously easier to be out and about in warmer weather). I also used to start feeding him downstairs in front of tv then move upstairs when I knew he was knackered for the final bit of settling, leaving dd in front of the tv for a few minutes. Bit counter-intuitive as you say, but sleep is the foundation of sanity imho.
One thing that worked when I moved ds into dd's room at 6 months and was worried about her waking him up was to do some 'rehearsing' of me coming into feed baby and her not waking up/staying quiet in her cot. Ditto being quiet when we put her to bed when the baby is already asleep. She thought it was great fun and still talks about it nearly 2 months after the event. And she's never woken ds up intentionally. Maybe try 'rehearsing' what you think is realistic for your ds to do?

Such a relief to hear others have this problem too. I was so panicky about the newborn/toddler stage I didn't think about what would happen when the baby grew

Thanks everyone

same here, but I put ds2 in buggy 3 times a day now for his naps. ds1 comes with for the walk. Baby usually falls asleep within 10 mins, esp. as I think he knows that it is his cue to sleep.

congratulations - hard, isn't it?

I know what you mean about it feeling a bit wrong to leave older dc in front of tv but it has been the saving of us - I give ds some breakfast/lunch and put playschool on, take dd into bedroom for feed and pat off to sleep, then I come back and sit with ds for a chat.

we only get through bedtime thanks to dh - dd is 9m now and I have to keep them separated as she just wants to play with ds - they egg each other on unbelievably! - she even tried it at 2:30am the other day when I brought ds into our bed after nightmares!

Posted earlier, but made me laugh this morning, my nearly 4 yr old dd has decided she wants to share a bedroom with 2.5 yr old ds, ds woke at 5.30 this morning and we could hear dd telling him to be quiet because it was still bedtime and she wanted to sleep, how the roles have reversed!!

I had exactly this with my 18 month old and newborn - baby would only feed if it was dim and absolutely silent .

So - DD being so young, I had to keep her with me.

I'm not sure how we achieved it but I explained that there was to be no talking as we went to where I was going to feed baby and that she could look at books but there was to absolutely be no talking. Then when she did talk, i would just say sssh, no talking - like a broken record. Baby would of course stop while I was doing it but DD then learnt the sign language for sssh and no talking and I would only need to put my finger to my mouth and glare at the same time and she would stop. She learnt pretty quickly and bless her, I still feel so bad that she had to do this 3-5 times a day poor love.