how can i get 13 month old ds2 to sleep (in day) for longer than 20-25 mins before new baby arrives in 6 weeks?!

[frazzledfairy]

until about 6-7 weeks ago all was ok, he would go in his pram with a dummy and go straight to sleep for anywhere between 40 mins-2 hours.

however one day he decided to eat the dummy teat and nearly choked soooo we took it away (he only had it for daytime sleeps anyway)and tried to get him to sleep in the cot without a dummy. he cries for 10 mins or so which i can cope with but then wakes up after 15-25 mins.

if i leave him to cry when he wakes it takes at least 40 mins for him to go back to sleep then he wakes again after a v short time

he will go off in the pram or car no probs but i am 34 weeks pg and don't really want to go for a walk every time he needs to go to sleep (and also not sure how easy it would be to do that with a newborn too!)

i had hoped it the sleeping in the cot would improve but after 6-7 weeks it hasn't.

any thoughts much appreciated

How long have you kept going with the routine? My ds went through a phase where he just wouldn't sleep in his cot when we moved house which was a frigging nightmare as dd was only 3 weeks at the time. I used to drive them both around but he would always wake when i got him home. It took me least 3-4 weeks to break the cycle and i had to set up a new routine: small story and cuddle on bed, close curtains, in bed say good night close door. I did it religiously every day with out fail and after 3-4 weeks of varying degrees of crying he would go down without a problem and now sleeps for 3 hours at lunchtime so he obviously needed the sleep. I found that i had to leave him to cry it out. i would go in a cuddle him every 10 mins and then go out. He cried for 2 hours on the first day but then every few days would cut the crying time down by 10 mins. now we have no probs at all.

it has also been really helpful to know that i have a solid block of time when he will be asleep as having the 2 of them was hard work.

hope this helps in some way and good luck.

I'm sorry - but it is possible that he has grown out of daytime sleeps - some do this early (I own two!). I think if it takes 40 minutes of crting for him to drop off for a few minutes it means he's tired from crying rather than needing sleep.

whispers ?

is he sleeping through at night? My dd now only sleeps for about an hour in the morning, she dropped her afternoon sleep about 2 months ago! She sleeps from 7pm - 6am so obviously isn't needing the afternoon sleep. I find that if she does have one, she sleeps worse at night. Maybe he just doesn't need any sleep during the day now - unfortunately for you!

A DVD sounds like a good idea, that will often work for my toddler when he is over tired and fractious.

Your DS may not need a sleep now - is he lasting the afternoon without his sleep?

My DS does sometimes take more than 40 mins to fall asleep crying or no crying it just depends on what game he wants to carry on in his bed before sleep time!

I know people who have use an hour of quiet time with reading etc when there toddlers dropped their sleeps a little early for the parents! although this may be tricky for you to impose which a newborn.