Teaching baby to self settle without waking siblings

[SayOohLaLa]

My DD is just a year old but, because of health issues when she was born, has never had a sleep routine as we needed to feed on demand for 6 months+.

The health issue is now resolved but she hasn't learned to self settle so is napping for less time than she should be, as she can't get herself back off to sleep, and is still up 5 times a night. We're dashing through and feeding her at night as she can't keep waking up her sibling (much older - KS2 in primary), particularly during school time.

To add to the fun, our older DC has afternoon / evening activities which make a set bedtime routine difficult as we may be eating / driving / sitting by a swimming pool at 7pm on various evenings so she can't do the 6.30pm bath and bed at 7pm routine we did for the older DC. We also don't have any family locally so we don't have anyone who can have our older DC over night whilst we sleep train baby.

Does anyone know of a sleep schedule where it's flexible enough to allow for us being out in the early evening, when babies in "standard" sleep routines are in the bath / in bed, and where baby doesn't cry? We partially don't want to do CIO methods but also can't leave her to cry and wake up her sibling. TIA.

Have sibling camp in a part of the house they wont get woken up and try a gentle version of cio. If you google, there are lots of options. The eloborate bed time routine is a bit of a red herring imho, the key is that they learn to self settle when they wake up in the middle of the night. You can have a 5 min bedtime routine involving a lovely and a song and that will be enough IF they can self sooth/settle

Can't help with the self settling as neither of mine did it until much older (c 2 years) although they didn't wake as much through the night.

Can you just have a later bedtime? Both my two have always had an 8pm bedtime as both my husband and I work and by the time we pick up from childcare, have dinner and then bath, 7pm is impossible.