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First baby was a terrible sleeper and now I'm constantly anxious about second baby's sleep

1 reply

whatasillybilly · 17/12/2022 19:35

As the title says. First baby nearly broke me with her awful sleep. Partly because I didn't actually realise how hard it was to get a baby to go to sleep and stay asleep and partly because she was genuinely awful and needed to be attached to my boob to sleep. I now have baby number two and am just constantly fretting about his sleep. He's still not great, although slightly better than his sister, but I'm permanently paranoid that I'm going to mess it up and make it worse/miss the opportunity to make it better. For example tonight he was really overtired and cried a lot going to sleep. Usually I can put him in his cot with his dummy and he'll happily go to sleep. It takes a while but eventually he gets there. Tonight I had to cuddle and rock him to calm him down and he was actually crying when I put him in his sleeping bag after being calm before that. I'm now totally freaking out that future bedtimes are going to be really awful because he'll have bad sleep associations from getting so upset tonight. I know they're different babies but I'm the same mother and what if I unknowingly create terrible sleepers! Exhaustion cast such a huge shadow over the first year with my daughter and I really want it to be different this time.

OP posts:
Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
Scramble1805 · 18/12/2022 02:21

I don't think his behaviour at bedtime is necessarily an indicator of things to come, they're usually overtired by that time and it's probably normal for him.
No advice really just empathy. I'm feeling exactly the same but the moment. 1st was a terrible sleeper and I convinced myself that if my second had an easier birth (which he did) then he would be more relaxed and sleep better.
He's not quite as bad as his brother but I fear im not going to get a proper night sleep, or an enjoyable evening for a very long time yet.
Exhaustion can do horrible horrible things to people's minds and I hope I don't fall down that spiral again.
Stay strong, it will get easier one day 🙂

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