experiences with a newborn and toddler

[pamelat]

Hello all

Was having a read though here to remind myself how awful sleep deprivation is

DD is 26 months and sleeps 11 hours at night. Up until about 4 months old she didnt really sleep at night, just cried a lot.

I am 31 weeks pregnant and dreading worrying about the newborn days again.

At least when DD never slept we could spend the night day just sat with her (she also never slept in the day, she had reflux which I think was part of the problem but nothing really cured it).

Am worrying about how you cope with possibly no sleep, or 3 to 4 hours broken sleep and then looking after an active toddler the next day?! Am not sure that we thought this through

I also genuinely can not remember what a "normal" night is with a newborn.

I breastfed DD and hope to do the same again so it will be pretty much me up in the nights. I could never get on with expressing.

DH will help out a lot at the weekends but I dont want it to be him and DD and me just with the baby (DS) as worried (also) about DD and how she will feel pushed out. She is quite a mummys girl and demanding.

We have both sets of our parents within 40 minutes of us with is helpful, at weekends.

I just dont know what people do?

My kids were 17 months apart and I was worried. Luckily my DD woke in the early days when the baby cried and I just said to her "don't worry, go back to bed, the baby is just hungry" and she did. If your hubby pops your older one back to bed with cuddles and reassurance if they wake and you deal with the baby it will all work out fine.

This book shows you many brilliant ideas for teaching your child good sleep habits from birth and soothe to sleep methods, so you help them not to get into bad habits in the first place. I've found it very helpful. It's not everyone's cup of tea as books go, so read the reviews and decide.

My second child had colic and it was a difficult time when born for me, as he did sleep badly. But once the colic went, things got so much better. Take any offers of help you can get IMO. Sleep when you can, whether you go to bed at 9pm and your hubby does a bottle feed of ebm at 11pm for you etc. So you can at least get some sleep. Co-sleeping is good with the second child, so you feed them lying down and sleep through it (maybe you did that with your first chid?).

I can't believe my second baby is 14 months old. Sure it was tricky in the early days, I cried a fair amount but it goes so fast and it's lovely to see them starting to play together now and he is now sleeping through the night.

There's lots of support on mumsnet and your HV may be also very helpful for advice, also homestart can be a Godsend, so do make use of them too!

Try not worry (easier said than done) it may not be as bad as you think x

Somehow you just manage, honestly. My ds1 was less than 7 months old when I got pregnany with ds2. It has taken 8 and a half months for my ds2 to sleep through the night (finally) and I am doing a part time teaching degree as well. What worked well for me was I would get up in the night and my husband would get up for the morning feed and give my eldest breakfast etc to give me a bit of a lie in in the morning- its amazing how much this few hours of sleep helps. Hope everything goes well