Toddler and baby sleep destroying me

[PoseyParker]

My new baby is 8 weeks old. She's quite colick-ey and screams all evening. She likes to be on mummy and will scream if put down. She won't sleep in our co-sleeper cot and so sleeps in bed with me. For the last three weeks my toddler (22months) has been waking very distressed several times a night and will only sleep if either myself or my husband are in the room. He sometimes stays with his grandparents and frustratingly sleeps really well there and doesnt wake. My husband works long hours and I am still recovering from a difficult pregnancy and birth. We're broken. I get no break for the children at all. No idea how to improve either situation. Baby will not sleep for the night until 10-12 midnight. Have tried everything to get her in cot. Nothing works. She is breast fed and wakes every two hours. I knew two would be hard but not this hard. Please help! I'm desperate!

Have you got enough beds / space for DH to temporarily move into a bed in your oldest room? He may then resettle if he wakes in the night and can hear someone else snoring in the room. Also DH won't be disturbed as much by baby.

It WILL get better. The evening cluster feeding will calm down soon, and hopefully the colic will ease too.

I feel your pain, I now have a one and three year old but remember well the early days of having two little people. I think my best advice would be not to be a hero, I thought my 'poor husband' needed sleep, what I have done more recently is thought he needs to help (and sleep on the train on his way to work)
I think if you can get baby to sleep with you, maybe try going to bed earlier?
Have you tried baby massage, something mid afternoon apparently helps with colic?
Buy ready meals, ready prepared vegetables, graciously accept all offers of help from family and friends, get a cleaner in if you can afford to and just do the bare minimum, it will get better, it just feels like wading through treacle now!

Cranial osteopath for baby? Have seen amazing results with this.

PoseyParker

Survival is all that matters right now. Just getting through.

I'd go for dummy + bouncy chair for daytime sleeps (aim for 45 minutes sleep and one feed in every 90 minutes). Bouncy chair in the middle of the living room with all your toddler's noise around (to teach baby not to be a light sleeper). You sit yourself on the sofa, one foot bouncing baby in the chair and hands playing with toddler.

Night times I'd go for dummy + swaddle and feed at every wake up that the dummy doesn't work.

I have two children 14 months apart, it does get easier

The early days are the hardest, they will get better just keep focusing on that. Can you go to family during the day so that they can entertain toddler so you can go get some sleep as tackling sleep problems in a baby is always easier when you aren't bone tired? My dd2 was a scream all evening kind of baby and I never got to bed until 11-12ish but it settled down, things that helped;

Dummy and swaddling
Shhh patting whilst in her cot until she settled then just kept hand on her tummy
Music (music will still put her back to sleep and she is 17 months)
Over the days it took less and less time to settle her
Dd1 would sit On my bed and watch peppa until dd2 was settled enough for me to focus on getting dd1 bathed and to bed and we managed to get some one on one time as well.

Dd1 used to scream 4-6 every evening, I walked around with her in a sling until she settled and cluster fed.

Really hope you can get some help and just remember it really will get easier, the jump from 1-2 children is the hardest but in a while you will look back and feel like a hero for getting through it!

Thanks for all your support. Everyone says that one of the better thing about second time around is that you know it will get better. But when you're in the thick of it I find it just as hard to believe as before. We've tried dummy's (she will not take one, neither would my eldest), hand on the chest, feeding to sleep into bed. Getting her to sleep in the sling and transfering, hot water bottles, swaddling. It honestly feels like I've tried it all. For the last two nights I've got my husband to take the baby out for bedtime so it doesn't distress my son (I know he will have to get used to the disruption eventually but I figure getting him some sleep is the priority. He's only 22 months) and then keeping the baby and me in a room with the door shut so that the screaming doesn't wake him. I think, like RedCar says, I'm trying to be the hero: doing everything to make sure my husband (who is also v. Depressed and anxious) gets the rest and space to exercise he needs). And when everyone is sleep deprived it's a vicious circle isn't it? It's so much harder. Yesterday I literally found my husband with his head in his hands, rocking and humming Somewhere Over The Rainbow to himself when they were both screaming. I kid you not! How am I supposed to deal with that!? Anyway toddler slept through last night so I feeling in control. It's so reassuring to hear others find it hard. All the other mums of two I know seem to find it much easier (and are all sleeping through) gah!