Siblings and baby's nap? Share?

[juleslane]

Ok mama's.....can I convince anyone to share their daytime nap routines if you have other children? I have 4 kids....my 3 older ones are home all day long and are pretty noisy of course. My 3 week old loves to sleep on me, but it is hard to get her to sleep anywhere else on the main level. I am sure I could get her to sleep upstairs in my bed(we co sleep), but can't exactly leave the older kids alone for the time it takes to get her to sleep. Carrying her works ok, except I have been in major pain the past 2 days from a slow c-section recovery and doc told me to take it easy. Plus, I NEED to get into some sort of sleeping routine for when I have to leave her with dh in 6 weeks when I get back to work part time(3 hours twice a week).

So how do you get babe into sleep routine with older noisy munchkins??

[Tenk]

I swaddle her up tight and put the binky in her mouth. Lilah sleeps in the bouncer because she has reflux and it has a vibrate button on it. She sleeps like a champ, but they conditioned her in the NICU for that and there was nothing I could do about it, I wasn't there at night or all hours of the day.

[attached2ethan]

I have three kids, but my older two are 5 and 7, so I can just tell them to stay out of my room for a while if I need to nurse the baby to sleep. But there are times when they need me and I have to nurse her in the sling to get her to sleep, but it takes a lot longer and she gets woken up more. However, when DS2 was born I remember it being very hard to get the baby to sleep when my toddler was running around. We did lots of sling nursing and wearing the baby while he napped, which was super hard on me and I try not to do that all the time with this baby, since she is willing to sleep alone sometimes I would also put my toddler down for a nap when I noticed the baby getting sleepy, so that I could have quiet to nurse him down- that worked really well for that one nap- and alas, I then had two sleeping babies and could nap or get something done around the house!

I will say also that 3 weeks old is a bit young to try and get into a sleep routine...DD is 6 weeks tomorrow and still has not daytime routine at all- she sleeps totally randomly. Her nightime is a bit more predictable, but I never know what she'll be doing in the day as far as sleep goes.

[juleslane]

Thanks mamas Tenk, I tried the swaddle binky tip today and it has worked like a charm!! I love to wear her to sleep a lot of times, but sometimes I just can't. I put her all swaddled in the loud living room, and she went right to sleep. No shot of it staying like that, but suppose I will figure it out over time. Each kid brings different challenges, huh?!

[To-Fu]

My problem is getting the 29mo to sleep with the newborn around. Any tips? It's been hit or miss so far... mostly disastrous.