Managing naps now we have a newborn

[glasspaw]

I have a 2 year old and a brand new baby.

our sleep journey with the 2 year old has been… tricky. We didn’t start sleep training him until quite late and we know we encouraged sleep crutches for far too long. We rocked him to sleep until he was about 20 months but finally managed to break that cycle by putting him in the cot and lying down next to him on the floor until he falls asleep. He’s normally down within 10 mins and then we can leave.

before anyone says it, I know this is not ideal. It’s a huge improvement on where we were but he’s still very dependant on company to fall asleep.

we now have a newborn. My partner is on his 2 week paternity leave right now so one of us has the baby while the other gets our toddler down, but from next week I’m on my own and I have no idea how I will cope.

the baby doesn’t like being put down and makes a lot of noise when I do. When she makes noise the toddler gets upset. I can’t leave her in another room for long enough to get him to sleep. I’m at a loss for how I manage 😬

at some point she’ll have a nap routine as well! Do people just leave their toddler when they put the baby down? I feel bad putting him in front of the tv 6 times a day but that’s the only way he’ll stay still for that length of time.

I would welcome any advice from those who have been in the same situation. I don’t want to delay sleep training so long with the baby because I know we have caused the toddlers dependency on us.

So I have a 5 month old and a 2 year old. My situation is different in that my toddler doesn’t need me to fall asleep. But my baby needs a lot of input.
so often I leave the toddler with some books or an activity during a nap and I go to put the baby down for a nap.
at night I just bring the baby in toddlers room whilst I dress toddler for bed. I can then leave toddler and settle baby.
i too am worried baby is developing unsustainable sleep associations but I don’t have capacity to train during naps as my toddler is waiting so what I do is I’ve been focusing on her sleep training at night l.
toddler can happily sleep through any cries baby makes but I keep a sound machine in baby room to try and drown sound out.

its tough but I would suggest keeping baby with you whilst toddler falls asleep and perhaps trying a slow retreat with toddler so that you can soon say good night and leave.

the approach I take is whoever is easier to fall asleep I do first. So on days baby is very tired I pop toddler in bedroom with some books and put baby to sleep. Come back to toddler read a book and say good night. But most nights toddler is put down first.

Thank you. I think you’re right, I’m not going to be able to leave the baby for long enough to allow our current routine to continue so taking her in and just trying to get him used to it feels sensible.

reassuring to know that others have similar challenges. It’s so easy to just feel like you’re failing at parenting sometimes.

I think you could practise putting the baby down or you will be rocking them to sleep at 20 months. Do it for seconds pick the baby back up before they cry and keep doing this for longer periods. OR get a sling and just crack on with the toddler. It's a huge adjustment with 2 children and there is no real wrong way at this stage its just muddling through.

Thank you. Yeah we are doing things differently this time. I’m trying to get her used to being put down and we are making progress with her already. At this point with our first we were literally only sleeping one at a time, the other would sit downstairs with the baby asleep on their chest. This time we are getting good stretches with her in the bassinet next to our bed which is amazing! it does take a few pick up - put down cycles though and a fair amount of crying 😅.

the sling is a good idea. I might give that a go tomorrow for the nap and see how I get on. I keep reminding myself that this bit is temporary and that we are coming into this with the knowledge that we coped before. Parenting is a whirlwind!

I used to have the Moses basket in the living room and my youngest napped in there so I wasn't leaving my eldest on his own all the time. It worked well!

I had the same age gap - DS1 was 23 months when DS2 was born. If DH wasn't around at bedtime I put the baby in the sling or breastfed him while reading bedtime stories and settling the 2 year old. It was an absolutely exhausting stage.

Very similar situation, except we never sleep trained our toddler so he still wakes up several times a night.

Bed times are really tough, but on my successful nights, we are all in toddler’s room. Baby is in a bouncer whilst I brush teeth read books, etc. At some point I also change baby and put him in sleeping bag. And then lights off and I sit on the floor next to toddler’s bed with baby in my arms. Once toddler is asleep, I take baby to his cot. If baby falls asleep first, I take him to his cot and come back and have bedtime cuddles with toddler.

On the unsuccessful nights, one of them is overtired and all 3 of us end up crying…! (No not really, only 2 of us!).

For nap times, will your toddler sleep in a push chair or in the car. Having a 2 year old and a newborn we switched naps to moving naps as it managed both nap times or one napping and the other not … but they were happy because we were moving !

We have a 3 year old and a young baby. To be honest with the second baby they just have to fit in with your life. My toddler goes to nursery 3 days a week so those days are baby focused, then the other two days I take them out to toddler places like soft play, groups and to see her friends, and baby just naps on the go. Is your 2 year old in nursery? If not then maybe put him in a couple of days a week for a change of scene for him. It’s good for their development at this age too.

Why will your baby not be put down? I feel history is repeating itself for you. Maybe I was lucky, but I've got 3 children and each of them napped in moses basket from day 1, and learned to self-settle from the offset. Sleep training shouldn't be required by default. We always put down awake from day 1, I think that's the key.

In the same position here with 7 week old and 22mo. All of babies naps are in the sling or pram, or on me on toddler's nursery days, with no structure yet. We're at the point now where I'm thinking we should start a bedtime routine and daytime napping routine but I just don't see how. It's actually been nice up til now to go with the flow and not think about wake windows etc but I don't want to be creating problems in the long run.

@Scottishgirl85 you were lucky. My eldest son was exactly as you say your kids were and I started doing the same with the new baby. She was having none of it. He was happy to be put down, went to sleep lying still on his own, slept well in his crib at night. This one cries within 2 mins of being put down, wakes every 10 mins at night unless bedsharing, no chance of self settling. I thought like you did until baby arrived and proved it was nothing I'd done right with my son, just pure luck!

@Scottishgirl85 yes you are correct this 100% is the key to getting them to sleep independently, I need to do this with DS who's almost 5 months old as I don't want history repeating for me.

How did you manage it though if they became unsettled when you put them down awake?! So far both mine will eventually start fussing & become inconsolable, then I end up lifting them & feeding back to sleep.

I had 20 months between my kids and i had a few strategies. Toddlers nap i’d put him into my bed and i’d get in too with the baby in the sleep next to me crib. Ideally we'd all nap! Sometimes I'd take the two of them for a walk in the pram at toddlers nap time. My other strategy was i linked the TV to my phone so when i was putting the baby to sleep in her cot (when she was a bit older) i’d pause the TV every few minutes and hear him complain so i knew he was ok. It was the most exhausting time of my entire life.

With second babies you usually just have to be more flexible. My second napped anywhere and everywhere. The amount of times she woke up confused because we were suddenly at softplay or a party etc!

And in answer to your screen time thing - screen time is your friend during this challenging phase. Use it as much as you need, everything will be ok.

@Pearlg we just never put down asleep/ never fed to sleep from day 1. If they fell asleep on us we'd have a cuddle and put down, never holding for full nap. I've always literally laid them down, smiled and said goodnight, and walked away. Occasional grumbles but last less than a minute. Think I'm just no nonsense and perhaps a little cold-hearted! But I literally can't imagine the hours some people spend on bedtimes. Consistency is key. Always same routine eg bath, book, milk, bed. Knowing signs so you catch nap/bedtime not too early/not too late.

The whole putting down drowsy but awake etc I think is mostly a load of rubbish 😆 and if it does work it must be down to luck! Mine just cried and didn’t sleep when I attempted that with my first. Plus I enjoyed the newborn naps on me.
When I had my newborn I breastfed him whilst putting the older one to bed to start with.

With the second I think you just do whatever you can to survive. My second napped in the sling for the first 9 months (I then could transfer him to his cot once he was asleep) but you just don’t have the time to be upstairs for aslong as you need when you have the first around too I found.

But then I also still sit next to the cot to get my youngest who’s 2, to sleep (but I don’t mind and actually quite like it and will miss this when one day he tells me to get out I’m sure!)

Oh I am trying that with the baby, it’s just not proving particularly successful yet and so the crying would really disrupt our toddler being able to get to sleep. We will persevere though because we really don’t want to be in the same situation a second time.

Oh I totally agree. I love sitting next to his cot talking to him about his day. He’ll usually ask me to hold his hand as he gets a bit sleepier. It’s wonderful… just not sustainable :(

He’s not in nursery sadly. We are on a waiting list but 4 local nurseries have closed since Christmas so everywhere is completely oversubscribed with trying to re distribute the kids from the closed facilities. So he’s with me every day through maternity leave unless I get a call to say he has a place.

My eldest didn’t start a few mornings a week until they were 3. It was fine. I just think that these things often just work themselves out. I remember googling tips on how to put two children to bed on your own 😆 and how to stop breastfeeding a toddler etc but when it came down to it, they grew older and their needs changed and it wasn’t a big deal anymore and things changed fine.
You may find your eldest will be capable of going to sleep without you by the time your youngest is in a proper bedtime routine etc. we also got ours a Yoto player which helped as I could leave them listening to a story in it to fall asleep to.

What about lying down with him in hour bed while you breastfeed baby on your side?
Maybe you'll all fall asleep?

I did this too. My eldest didn’t want to be left in their room on their own whilst I put baby to bed so lay in my bed whilst I fed baby (to sleep!) and put him in his cot. Then I put my eldest to bed (or often she fell asleep in my bed in the mean time and I carried her through to her bed!)

Your eldest is at the point where your next step is sitting up gentle hand on him then when that works drop the hand after a few days start moving away in a week or two you can leave him.

My girls are 11 months apart in age, eldest was always a trickier sleeper. When I had my 2nd I just started doing the same bedtime routine with both, I would take babies moses basket into older babies room, it’s the best thing I did, my husband was never around for bedtime during the week. Once both asleep I would put babies Moses basket into my bedroom. I am not sure if it was due to how I managed things or luck but the baby ended up being incredibly easy and was sleeping though by 6 weeks (eldest was still waking!!), it also gave us our evenings from the start which was essential after such a busy day. I had a TV monitor on the baby so knew she was fine, she’s 14 now and still loves her sleep, the eldest remains a terrible sleeper.