feargod102501
New member
Please share any and all wisdom you've learned for two little ones! We're expecting Baby in late spring, and LO (who is sleep trained) will be a little over a year and a half then.
2 under 2: Give me all your sleep advice
- Thread starter feargod102501
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- 1 year + sleep training
@feargod102501 My first baby was almost exactly 2 years old when my second was born in September.
Here are some quick hot tips (not all sleep related) before I break down where we are at currently:
- for the first couple of weeks or however long you are both home I highly recommend splitting duties. Mom is on all things newborn, dad is on all things toddler. That's what worked for us with my husband home for 4 weeks and it was so helpful as I got to know my new baby and established breastfeeding etc.
- the newborn stage will fly by this time and you will be a lot happier / less stressed about everything
- your older baby will take some adjusting to the newborn but i promise they will love one another. The way my 2 year old looks at her sister and genuinely gets so happy when she smiles is the sweetest thing the world
- baby wearing is your friend. Embrace it as early as possible
Here's our situation -
Baby 1 (who we sleep trained at 4 months old) is a great sleeper and takes a nap 1:30ish to 4ish, sleeps overnight from 8:30ish to 7 (we start bedtime around 7:50/8 and she typically takes about 15-20 min of happy crib time to fall asleep). So this is the schedule that baby 2 gets to work around.
Baby 2 - I baby wear A LOT. It is great bc I am not trapped in a nursery all day, I have 2 hands free, baby 2 is not being fed to sleep like baby 1 was all day every day, and I get long naps from baby 2. I also feel like I am way more flexible and less stressed about sleep. If a nap is short, oh well, there's always the next one. If baby falls asleep in the car during school drop off, no worries, we'll go for a drive or something to extend the nap if possible. Basically baby 2 is by necessity go with the flow.
The only challenge we have right now is bedtime isn't consistent. I was just telling my husband that I need to be better about locking in a bedtime routine like we did with our first bc right now we deal with false starts / having to resettle her once or twice at the beginning of the night (the rest of the night is fine once she's down, I do a dream feed around 10:45/11 and then she wakes at 5 for one more overnight feed). But I also know that when we sleep train at 4 months we should have no problems fixing this issue! Where I would have been totally devastated to have to hold baby 1 for part of the night before laying her down, with baby 2 I'm just happily like ok no big deal, I'll just watch a show or read a book. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
I hope this was a little helpful. I'm feeling rambly but just wanted to dump some thoughts while I'm sleep trapped hahaha
Here are some quick hot tips (not all sleep related) before I break down where we are at currently:
- for the first couple of weeks or however long you are both home I highly recommend splitting duties. Mom is on all things newborn, dad is on all things toddler. That's what worked for us with my husband home for 4 weeks and it was so helpful as I got to know my new baby and established breastfeeding etc.
- the newborn stage will fly by this time and you will be a lot happier / less stressed about everything
- your older baby will take some adjusting to the newborn but i promise they will love one another. The way my 2 year old looks at her sister and genuinely gets so happy when she smiles is the sweetest thing the world
- baby wearing is your friend. Embrace it as early as possible
Here's our situation -
Baby 1 (who we sleep trained at 4 months old) is a great sleeper and takes a nap 1:30ish to 4ish, sleeps overnight from 8:30ish to 7 (we start bedtime around 7:50/8 and she typically takes about 15-20 min of happy crib time to fall asleep). So this is the schedule that baby 2 gets to work around.
Baby 2 - I baby wear A LOT. It is great bc I am not trapped in a nursery all day, I have 2 hands free, baby 2 is not being fed to sleep like baby 1 was all day every day, and I get long naps from baby 2. I also feel like I am way more flexible and less stressed about sleep. If a nap is short, oh well, there's always the next one. If baby falls asleep in the car during school drop off, no worries, we'll go for a drive or something to extend the nap if possible. Basically baby 2 is by necessity go with the flow.
The only challenge we have right now is bedtime isn't consistent. I was just telling my husband that I need to be better about locking in a bedtime routine like we did with our first bc right now we deal with false starts / having to resettle her once or twice at the beginning of the night (the rest of the night is fine once she's down, I do a dream feed around 10:45/11 and then she wakes at 5 for one more overnight feed). But I also know that when we sleep train at 4 months we should have no problems fixing this issue! Where I would have been totally devastated to have to hold baby 1 for part of the night before laying her down, with baby 2 I'm just happily like ok no big deal, I'll just watch a show or read a book. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
I hope this was a little helpful. I'm feeling rambly but just wanted to dump some thoughts while I'm sleep trapped hahaha
feargod102501
New member
@texco This was SUPER helpful! Thank you so much for taking the time to write out such a detailed response! Especially the encouragement about feeling less stressed; I was an emotional mess with LO and was a little worried about going through that again. Fingers crossed! 
Did you find that the newborn woke up your toddler at all?
You'd think that having gone through the sleep- training/WW's rabbit hole once, I'd be like "pfft, piece of cake!" But instead, I'm thinking of how this new baby will affect our LO's sleep and vice versa.
Did you find that the newborn woke up your toddler at all?
You'd think that having gone through the sleep- training/WW's rabbit hole once, I'd be like "pfft, piece of cake!" But instead, I'm thinking of how this new baby will affect our LO's sleep and vice versa.
@feargod102501 I totally know how you feel and I felt the same way before baby 2 arrived and even in the first couple weeks before my husband went back to work. I kept trying to think through every scenario and be like ok what if this happens??? But the truth is you don't have to deal with every possible scenario at one time. You will be dealt one situation and you will find a solution to it. Promise it's not as hard as you think!!!
Regarding newborn waking toddler - not even once has it happened. Toddler still sleeps with white noise, though it's not as loud as it was when she was a tiny baby. She sleeps through pretty much anything noise-wise with the exception of the noise machine being turned off lololol
Regarding newborn waking toddler - not even once has it happened. Toddler still sleeps with white noise, though it's not as loud as it was when she was a tiny baby. She sleeps through pretty much anything noise-wise with the exception of the noise machine being turned off lololol
feargod102501
New member
@feargod102501 You're so welcome!!! You're gonna do great.
@feargod102501 Stuff the bottle of the doors with a blanket. Toddler woke up first few weeks but that was likely adjustment and developed altering sleep rather than total blame on baby.