Desperately needing some MN support - night weaning/attention seeking/room sharing nightmare

[DecapitatedLegoman]

DD is 11 months and DS is 4. We have a 2 bed house. DD is BF and wakes constantly for feeds. DS has started waking a few times a week with spurious reasons. I am chronically exhausted and DH works shifts so can't help much or consistently.

I moved DD's cot into DS's room thinking she might sleep better away from me. What's actually happening is she's disturbing him sometimes and I am therefore rushing to feed her, and sometimes they're both awake which ends up being a prolonged nightmare. I often take her into bed with me to settle her with a BF and save her waking him up.

DH is on night shift this week so I am alone. I was thinking that maybe DS is insecure seeing how much attention DD gets at night, so I could move him into my bed for the week and use the time to night-wean DD. I never night-weaned DS though so I don't really know where to start.

I am bloody knackered and I could really use some help to formulate a plan on how to go about this, or at 2am some night I'll cave and be back to square one. Please, any suggestions welcomed, I'm too tired to go on like this. :(

Well things went significantly downhill due to a combination of her having a dreadful night then DS having wild nightmares the next night. Last night DH did most of it because I was shattered. She's not getting fed to sleep for naps or bedtime or 80% of night wakings. I'm caving if she's really unsettled and I'm just not able to stay up anymore. So whether she'll improve or not I have no clue, but the way DH's shifts are this week he'll be able to take on more night stuff which will help because she settles easily and quickly for him.

I'm still doing a dreamfeed type thing before bed ... What are your thoughts on this?

I do hope your children all sleep 12 hours tonight :)

Things are not going well, having to feed her cos the yelling is keeping DS awake :( doubly annoying because she only woke up because he fell out of bed and yelled his head off in a most theatrical fashion. DH tried to settle her but she just yelled and cried and I didn't think it was fair on DS to have that going on. Don't think we'll ever get anywhere at this rate :(

Had a terrible night as well Legoman... lost count of the number of times DS woke up, but at one point it was every 20 minutes. He's just got the point of a new tooth through so I guess it's a combo of teething and learning to crawl (he keeps waking up on his hands and knees rocking back and forth) but it's really tough going. I'm really grumpy today through lack of sleep!!

Hope tonight is better for you!

Oh I am so pleased I came across this post as now know it isn't just me going through this hell!! I am in a similar position, dd1 -5 & dd2 - 14 mths have to share a bedroom. Only recently put them in together as didn't want to disturb dd1's sleep as dd2 is an awful sleeper, rarely sleeping more than 3 hrs at a stretch. Tried a month ago, to begin with didn't seem too bad, at bedtime didn't seem too bad, bf til half asleep them put in cot & patted to sleep. Often wakes & then I bfeed her or rock her back to sleep & them put her in cot. Problem is after about 11pm she won;t settle, screams & screams so I end up giving up & having her in our broom. She still doesn;t settle, has huge amounts of wind & just suckles for comfort. I am exhausted, everyone is so tired & grumpy it just feel like some sort of hell at the moment. I know I have to stick it out but really don;t know how to without disturbing dd1.