Please help me with naps for my 6 month old as my 3 year old is paying the price!

[Tory79]

I actually suspect ds1 doesn't mind too much as he gets the tv on, but I'm basically in the position where, when we're at home, I have to feed ds2 to sleep and this can take half an hour!! And ds1 ends up abandoned in front of the tv while I try and settle him down. Sometimes it's even longer if ds2 stirs and needs resettling. Eg now I have just been upstairs with him for 45 fecking minutes and guess what, he woke as soon as I tried to put him down. He's now mithering in his bed, and I'm hovering on the landing.

I'm 'lucky' that ds1 is a tv addict and will sit happily in front of it for as long as he can, but my word I feel wretched. Tv is the only way to keep him downstairs, otherwise he just runs around shouting and trying to disturb his brother.

What am I missing? Or is this just what happens in every house until they self settle?

I use a dummy so can put my 6 month old down for a sleep at 9.30am and 1.00pm wide awake, kiss on the cheek and walk out the room. No crying at all.

This only works because baby has a dummy to allow her to self settle.

That shouldn't say self settle, because she's not self settling (that doesn't come until school age without the dummy). What I meant was settling independently of me.

Could you start trying to teach him to self settle? Feed until drowsy, into crib, mobile or lullabye toy thingy on and leave the room?

The few times I've tried leaving him he just starts howling. I guess at some point I'll have to persevere. With ds1 he began self settling of his own accord around 9/10m if I recall correctly.

He doesn't have a dummy and I wouldn't fancy introducing one at this point.

What do other people do with older dc while you're trying to settle the baby?

Funny, I was just going to post a similar question! I have a 3.5 year old and 5 month old and was really hoping that the baby would be settling herself a little more by now. I usually have to feed her to sleep too and she often wakes up as soon as I put her down or soon after and has to be resettled. My DS has been playing a game on his iPad for the last half hour while I've been settling her for Her midday nap, poor little guy!

Re self settling: that's lucky that your baby just drops off to sleep, FATE, but I think that is totally dependent on the baby. I used a dummy with DS and he self settled no bother, was in a nice routine by 6 months. DD is a different story, she pulls the dummy out and cries as soon as I leave the room. Some babies self settle well, others are a bloody nightmare don't.

No advice for you, OP, as I'm in the same boat I'm afraid!

Re what I do with DS thoigh: he is a little older but he has good educational iPad games that occupy him and he is getting a lot better at playing on his own in his room with Playmobil or wooden blocks or with a toy tool bench he has. Sometimes thoigh, yes, we resort to TV too, especially later in the day when he is too tired to focus well on playing alone.

This was me last year. I started a thread about too. Basically the short answer is you can't be in two places at once. DD1 (then 2.5yo) got abandoned in front of the tv a fair bit and I felt awful.

The only advice i can give is to persevere and get the younger one's naps sorted as soon as is humanly possible. Decide on a strategy (whatever that might be) and see it through.

With me I would give DD2 her bottle then put her down with music on (lullaby that turned itself off after a while). Then i'd dash down to dd1 to check on her. If DD2 was crying i'd go straight back up, shush/pat/etc then back downstairs for 5 mins, then back up, repeat ad infinitum.... That way the longest DD1 was on her own was the time it took DD2 to drink her milk.

If it gives you hope it did get better fairly quickly - it just didn't feel like it for the interim couple of months where i was battling to get naps sorted.

The other thing i did was organise trips out so we'd be driving during DD2's nap time so she'd sleep in the car.

I normally get at least one nap in the car as we're out and about a lot - I think I'm feeling particularly bad about it because ds1 has chicken pox so all naps are at home, plus he's poorly and I'm still having to leave him downstairs. To top it all off ds2's naps have been really shit today so I've not even had that time with just ds1 waaaah!

Re self settling: that's lucky that your baby just drops off to sleep, FATE, but I think that is totally dependent on the baby.

I guess I've been lucky four times over with my four children then.

When mine went through the pulling dummy out phase (around 4-6 months, when they find their hands) we brought back the swaddle for a while.

Dummy is a much easier and hassle-free option for both mother and baby (and indeed siblings and father) in my view. But each to their own.

Yep, I guess you just had 4 DC that were able to self settle. I'm using a dummy with my DD and it doesn't help. What works for one baby doesn't always work for another. It's trial and error for each one.

Babies don't self settle. Children don't have the emotional brain development to settle like an adult would (ie tired, lie down, close eyes, sleep) until pre-school age.

Until then any child needs a 'thing' to give them the comfort to trigger sleep. Some people use:

• Feeding
• Special comforter toy
• Special 'blankie'
• Sucking fingers/thumb/hand
• Hair twiddling (when older)
• Self patting/tickling

I use a dummy. In addition DC2 had a special teddy who he used to pat and DC3 hair twiddled. DC1 was a nightmare (as many firstborns are) and so far DC4 just needs the dummy.