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3 year old stopping 1 year old from sleeping

2 replies

poorlymatchedsocks · 03/12/2019 19:31

We've always had a good sleep routine where my 3 year old goes to bed about 7.30pm, story tucked up drink etc:then I go downstairs and breastfeed my 1 year old until she falls asleep then place her in bed. But the past couple of weeks my 3 year old has been a nightmare. Calling downstairs for hours asking for ridiculous things like his dinosaur being cold, needing a drink when he's had one, going to the toilet then not going, basically just to get our attention but it's stopping my 1 year old from going to sleep and sometimes they'll both be awake until 9.30/10pm because he's so pessistant.

I've tried ignoring him, and warning him, confiscating toys, explaining that he's had his bedtime now it's his sisters and she can't go if he's shouting. I know he feels left out but I can't feed her to sleep before he goes to bed then do his bedtime because the noise will keep her awake. He's going through a generally testing time at the moment pushing his boundaries which I don't mind it's just his age it's just the bedtimes which are really getting me down and some nights I'm close to tears.

OP posts:
Lizzie840 · 04/12/2019 10:31

Sounds stressful for you! I have no experience with this as I only have one, but how about trying to put the baby to bed first? Tell your 3 year old that because he's older, he's going to bed a bit later than the baby and he that because he's so grown up now he can stay up a bit later, but part of being the bigger one means he has to be very quiet after the baby goes to bed. So you're selling it to him as an exciting, big boy thing to be doing, which might make him more inclined to go along with it?

Like I said, I've no experience with two children, so this might not be helpful at all- I've seen friends of mine doing similar which is why I thought of it.

poorlymatchedsocks · 04/12/2019 22:42

Thank you @Lizzie840. I've really tried to do that in the past with making his bedtime after my DD's but she takes a good 40 minutes to drop off and I don't want to leave him to watch things on his own for that long because he's a bit of a boisterous boy and would prob end up hanging from the light when I got downstairs, Grinhe'd also call for me after 5 minutes.
I'm going to just make more of a big deal out of his bedtime and take him out just me and him at the weekend to see if the personal time will help. Hopefully it'll just have to be a new routine that we work into but it's just getting into the routine that's the pain

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