Sleep Problems with My Almost Two Year Old Since the New Baby

I've seen this on super nanny. Stay cool, don't say too many words. Just say "back to bed" (unemotionally) and take her by the hand and walk her back to her bed and then walk out of the room. Do this over and over and over. There might be lots of tantrums and drama and it might take 100 tries over 3-4 nights but eventually, it will work. Good luck!

Our son had the hardest time sleeping after we brought our daughter home! He had night terrors for about a month...it was not a good time, but he eventually started sleeping though the night again. I wish you the best of luck! I think it may just be a transitional thing!

ugh.....i feel your pain!
my daughter did the same thing about a week after i came home with our first son. she was a little older though, she was 2 1/2. plus, she stopped pooping too, so we had constipation to deal with also! althought i dont really have and advise to give you, i just wanted to let you know that you are not alone with this one! i honestly cant remember what we did to help her besides go in and try to comfort her. i think my husband would go in and sleep on her floor until she fell back asleep. (i couldnt because i was up nursinng the new little one all night!) we just felt so badly for her since she was so upset that we just wanted to comfort her!
good luck to you! im sure she will grow out of it soon!
~R.

I read the other responses and agree that there are things you can do (although you have probably tried most if not all) and also that usually the older child will get over it with time. That is not very comforting for you guys who are getting less sleep than ever and watching the distress of your older girl. One thing that helped for us - I always had a CD player in my son's room for listening to soothing bedtime music. I got from the library some kids books on CD and let him listen to that (his own special big boy nighttime activity) before going to sleep. I burned my own copies of the CD's and added classical or other soothing music to the end of it, so he just fell asleep with it playing. We let him know that if he got up in the night he was allowed to press play on his story and quietly listen and fall back asleep. He does it to this day (he is now 5) although the stories have changed and he now shares a room with his little brother (the original culprit of all these shenanigans!) With his special blankie and his stories, we made it through this tough time. Good luck.

Two thoughts come to mind-- first, that your daughter clearly is upset by the change in the level of attention given her. I know there are many good books on the subject of helping children deal with the birth of younger siblings. Knowing of my own brother's aversion to my arrival, I can tell you the effects can be profound and lasting if not dealt with adequately. My best suggestion is to help her to be a "helper" to you. Let her do little things like bottlefeed her sister (with adequate help/supervision), sit in your lap as you fee her, etc. Just let her know she is a part of all this and that you appreciate her suffering and sacrifices for the sake of her little sister. Maybe even talk to her about the nighttime sleeping. At two, she can understand basics. That you both need to sleep well in order to have energy and do lots of things the next day. Maybe plan some special events you can do if she sleeps well. etc.

This is the approach I would use for the short time, like up to six months. After that, it may be necessary to do the dirty. To let her know that you will get up, check on her needs when she cries, but then you will close the door and let her cry it out if she cannot sleep. This sounds harsh, but what I've seen (watching a very experienced and loving mother who also did childcare overnights) is that kids quickly learn that they don't get the adult attention they crave and soon learn to let go the "attention-getting behaviors".

Hope this helps. The bottom-line really is that you are forming your children in so many ways. The first priority must always be to manifest to them real love, that they may grow up in love and become capable of love. However, love must always include the formation of their self-control, virtue, integrity, self-discipline/self-denial (in order to be able to love and suffer and sacrifice for their own children's sake someday). So, as mom and dad one must be both strong and gentle, firm and kind, loving but ready to be the "bad guy" sometimes.

God Bless,
S.

Dear C. S, I also have a 2.8 year old girl and an 8month old boy, and two boys ages 7 & 9yrs. I am a firm believer that you need to stick with one approach and keep doing the same thing over and over and over....it seems that she needs routine and she misses it because of the newness of the baby. She may also be frustrated like you. Whatever you do, I think YOU SHOULD NOT GIVE IN TO HER....then she will be in charge and not you. Bless your heart in this difficult but blissful time...the good news is....nothing lasts forever!

Dear C.,
I had almost exactly the same experience when my second son was born a few months ago. My first son was 22 months at the time and until the arrival of the new baby had been sleeping through the night and going down for naps and bedtime without a fuss. Although he liked the new baby and did not seem jealous or to be having trouble adjusting during the day, bedtime (although, actually, not naptime) became a battle. He would cry for an hour before finally going to sleep and would then wake up crying several times during the night. What finally worked for us was setting aside some time for each parent to ready stories or sing songs with him before he went to bed. The new baby was not allowed to be present, and because obviously either my husband or I needed to be with the baby, we each had individual time with our first son. In addition to this, we stopped going into his room after a few weeks the start of his crying himself to sleep. We would go in just one time if he didn't settle down right away, and we would tell him that we loved him but that he needed to go to sleep and we would see him in the morning. We told him we would not be coming back in. After only a few nights of these combined strategies, he started sleeping through the night again (if he woke up in the middle of the night, though, we still went into his room). In the case of my son, I think the problem was that he woke up to find his grammy in the house, and then he and grammy went to the hospital, where his parents were holding a new baby. This was all very confusing, and I think he worried that he might go to sleep and wake up to find something else totally different. Maybe it will help you to solve your daughter's sleep problems if you can figure out what she is worried about.

I actually read this post hoping for advice - my two are 22 months apart so similar to yours I'm guessing, and my older daughter was sleeping well until the baby came home. The baby is 3 months old now, and she's definitely doing a lot better - there are nights where she goes the entire night without problems - but we definitely aren't back where we were. My husband gets up with her and can usually get her back to sleep pretty quick (within 5 minutes or so), hopefully we get back to sleeping through the night consistently soon! The first few weeks she was waking up more than our newborn, so we are seeing a big improvement. Nap time is hard here too, some days we get rest time rather than nap time where I'll lie down on my bed with her and the baby and read stories. It's not as good as a nap, but it does help her recharge. Sometimes she'll go get in her bed and read to her stuffed animals, that seems to help her recharge too. In terms of getting her to actually nap, my best luck seems to be taking both kids out on a walk in our double stroller - when we get back I just let her sleep out her nap in the stroller because she wakes up if I try to take her out. Good luck, I'll be watching this post for advice to help me!

Hi C.,

My son did the same thing. He had just turned two right before our second was born. He started having terrible naps and coming into our room over night and it was stressing me out. I always stressed when he wouldn't get good naps or good overnight sleep b/c it, of course, affects their mood/behavior thereafter. He had the trouble napping and sleeping through the night again for about 4-5 weeks after his brother was born, but now is back to his old self, or even better, taking a longer nap everyday and sleeping about 45 minutes longer every night.

I think the excitement of the new sibling and the "trauma" of momma and daddy being gone for a few days probably makes them OVERtired, which in turn makes it more difficult to sleep well, which keeps the cycle rolling. I believe it was exhaustion from all the excitement, but also he was starting to work on his 2 yr. molers, and we had NO CLUE!! One day while brushing we saw two of them were starting to cut through the gums and we thought, "Wow - he never complained about it!" but are now wondering if he trouble sleeping was related to the teeth, since I hear teething can make them restless. One thing that I did for my own sake was to not stress about the sleeping. I don't know if that was part of the solution or not, but it certainly helped my state of mind. Maybe he sensed my calm? I don't know, but I decided that what he slept he slept and I couldn't do anything about it (b/c I had already tried EVERYTHING) so I would just need to relax and let be what was. Within 2 weeks of doing that, he was back to his old sleeping routine, and like I said earlier, even BETTER sleep.

I don't know if this will be the same for you, but I hope this was at least encouraging and helpful for you!

Best wishes with the two little ones!! It's a lot, but SUCH fun, huh?