Hi everyone! I'm so excited to find a site like this one. I can't wait to hear all of your great advice. So here's my problem.My husband and i co sleep with our 18 month old son and we love it, but now that i'm pregnant again we decided to split into two rooms after i have the baby( him with our son and me with the little one) so the baby wouldn't disturb them. We gently weaned my son from breastfeeding at 13 months ( he took right to it, no problems at all) and daddy was putting him to sleep and all was well. Then BAM out of nowhere we have to fight him into bed at night. He's refusing his naps, and won't go to sleep at night unless both of us are there, and even then it takes at least an hour!!! I understand that he may be holding on to us because he knows another baby is comming and we're trying to be patient with him, but i'm 34 weeks pregnant now and my husband and i are starting to loose our cool. Do we keep doing what we're doing knowing that everything will go to hell when we bring the baby home? We have asked advice from people and they just tell us to let him cry it out, which is out of the question. Do any of you have any tips or at least a story of a light at the end of this tunnel? Any supportive words would be greatly appreciated. Also, we have yet to pick a name for our new little one and we don't know what we're having so we would love to hear your suggestions.
I'll suggest the name again because I love it so much...For a baby girl, Malilee (Mah-Lily). As far as your baby boy, don't force a bed-weaning if he's not ready for it. You can have him sleep on a twin bed wedged next to yours, on a mattress on the floor, or place baby in a co-sleeper next to you. Your husband would most likely get up with you and baby anyway, so don't worry about disturbing him. And if the baby wakes up your son, you can get him involved in baby care or sing to both of them as you nurse the baby. But if he's not taking to the bed-weaning, all you can do is listen to him. He's not ready.
yeh, might be time to skip the naps. Let your child lead the way. If he doesn't need that much sleep anymore, nothing you can do that will force him to go to bed when he's not sleepy. I wouldn't suggest pushing the child out of the bed if he's not ready for that, either. It could be traumatic and make for some serious sibling rivalry issues if he feels like you are pushing him away or if he thinks the baby is taking his place. What I did when I was pregnant was lay down with DH and DD1 until they fell asleep, then I'd move into the other room because I needed my space and couldn't stand sleeping with other people, and had serious late-pregnancy insomnia and kept getting up all night anyway and didn't want to disturb them.
thank you for your advice! that's kind of how i felt about it ( to just let my son lead the way) but sometimes it's hard to trust myself. I don't really know anyone personally who agrees with the way i raise my son (no TV, co- sleeping, organic foods and stuff) that's why i happy to have found this site!
