Hellobee

Toddler Girl and I, we’ve been spending a lot of time like this lately.

My current super power is being super tired.  When you have your first child, everyone says “sleep when the baby sleeps!” You try and sometimes you succeed and all is well.  When you have your second baby people give you the same advice, and you want to laugh.  “Oh, you mean sleep when both my babies are sleeping?  At the same time?  I’ll get right on that!”

Wonder Baby sleeps like a pretty average baby, which is not wonderful.  But that’s a long story all on its own (as a sneak peek, she’s currently nursing while sleeping on my lap.  My other super power is nursing and working at the same time).

Toddler Girl has always been a good night time sleeper.  When she was five days old, she slept seven hours straight.  I woke up every hour to make sure she was still breathing.  She had the odd sleep regression, but pretty much slept well until six months when she started going for 14 hours a night.  Every night.  Until she turned one.  I know!  She even napped pretty well once she got past the needing to always be held stage when she was a little baby.  Don’t get me wrong — she had many other charming qualities (colic, anyone?), but sleeping was something I could count on going right as long as we stayed on schedule.

Fast forward to 23 months old.  She isn’t quite as reliable with her night time sleep, and sometimes wanders around in her crib for an hour or so before falling asleep.  Her naps are still fantastic — I just plop her down in the crib with a clean diaper on and she’ll be asleep within 5 minutes.

Then I had Wonder Baby. I got very, very tired.  Our routine fell to pieces.  Toddler Girl still got lots of attention from her dad and my parents, but not as much from me.  She noticed.  My once amazing sleeper was taking up to five hours to fall asleep at night.  She was usually happy enough, but not asleep.  In the middle of this we switched to her big girl bed. She continued to nap happily, but night time was a mess. That wasn’t really a change since before the switch, so I considered that a successful enough transition.

At 3 months Wonder Baby had a growth spurt.  I was glued to the couch nursing 24 hours a day for a week.  I swear I could see that kid growing in front of my eyes.  My in-laws were visiting so they picked up the slack with TG.  She had so much fun, they spent a ton of time playing outside while I nursed and nursed and nursed.  Everything was delightful (apart from my butt going numb) except her sleep.  She became incredibly clingy at bedtime,   not just staying awake, but sobbing for me “Mommy, mommymommymommy”.  It was heartbreaking.  Then her nap times fell apart as well.  Meanwhile, WB loved no one but me (sweet sweet provider of milk).  She would often scream bloody murder when I handed her off to someone so that I could spend time trying to get TG settled to sleep.  It was super.  I was also waking up multiple times a night with WB, at least once a night with TG and often not getting to sleep until 1.

I’m pretty tired today, but remembering last month is actually making me feel better!  Here’s what we’ve been doing to try and get TG’s sleep habits back to normal:

– Not rushing her.  I realized that with the baby stressing us out, we were rushing TG’s bedtime instead of being mellow.  Now I try to start bedtime an hour or so early and just let her take her time.  If she wants to kiss every animal good night before she puts it away?  Fine.  If she wants me to stay by her side a few more minutes?  Okay.  For that hour she is a complete priority.  This is much easier when Mr SH is home.  Three nights a week I have both girls for bedtime which is a bit rough, but I try to keep my mood calm, even if I’m worried that the baby will run out of patience soon.  Deep breaths.

– Having a predictable routine but not stressing about the time.  Now this bit is the opposite of what you’re always told.  They say that for a kid to sleep well, the bed time should be exactly the same every night. It’s more important that the baby is happy so that I can focus on TG.  So whenever WB wakes up from her evening nap and has some milk, it’s time to start the bedtime routine.  I usually have an hour to an hour and a half before WB needs to sleep again so that’s our window to get TG to sleep.  This results in bedtime being anywhere from 7:30 to 8:30.  It’s not ideal, but the trade-off is a better quality bedtime transition and it’s really helping.

– Staying with her until she’s ready for us to leave.  After the light goes out, we talk about her day, I sing her a song and pray for her, and then I just hang out beside her bed and hold her hand.  She climbs in and out of my lap ten times for hugs.  When I feel that she’s okay with me leaving, I tell her goodnight and head out.  Ideally, she likes to spend a bit of time with each of us.  As I mentioned, this only happens four nights a week — the other three she gets only me and WB wiggles around on a blanket on the floor.  If she calls for us after that time, we tell her to go back to bed.  If she’s upset (for more than a minute or two), we go in again for a bit.  We don’t leave her to cry unless it’s an exceptionally bad night, and we know that we’re just distracting her from falling asleep.

This past week her naps have gone back to normal.  We still spend about 5 minutes with her, enough time that she doesn’t feel like she just got dumped in bed, and then it’s off to sleep.  Night times aren’t perfect, but she’s usually asleep in about and hour an we haven’t had a really unsettled night.  She’s less whiny because she’s sleeping better.  All is well. Other than Wonder Baby waking me up five times last night and refusing to nap alone.

Was your older child’s sleep affected when baby #2 came along?