[sept2008twingirls]

I have two month old twins and ever since they were born, DS (age 2), only wants ME at night. I lay down with him at night to make him sleep and if he wakes up during the night I have to go lay down with him (the girls are sleeping in the living room now since they've had their days and nights mixed up and were up for hours). The problem is that I might need to feed a baby or get one to sleep at the same time as he needs to go to sleep (we ended up getting him in bed at midnight last night), but he won't go to sleep without me. Then if he wakes up and I'm feeding one, he wants me too. He used to go to sleep sometimes with DH before the girls came and also when I was in the hospital, but now he only wants "mama".

So, there are two things I could do, I think...

1)Teach him to sleep with DH and have DH comfort him at night. Any experiences with changing caregivers like this?

2) Move the girls to our room. I'm worried about my toddler waking up at night. Have any of you co-slept with your toddler and had your newborn in the room too? If so, did you put your kids to bed at the same time? Any experiences would be helpful.

Thanks,

 

[Om Girl]

Here's my experience:

We co-slept with DD (2.5yo) from birth and during my pregnancy we started having DH put her to bed a few nights a week when I was working and out of the house. Once that was going good we started having DH put her to bed on the nights I was home...some tears ensued but they didn't last longer than 10 minutes. (He had to read a LOT of stories, but it worked) We now take turns putting DD#1 to bed. She still wakes in the night and cries out for "mommy" but if DH is in bed with her she'll settle back down. Sometimes she'll crawl out of bed and come into mine.

Right now our sleep arrangement is like musical beds. Sometimes it's me and the girls in our bed with DH in a separate bed. Sometimes it's me and DD#2 in one bed and DH and DD#1 in another bed. Last night it was me in one bed, DD#1 in her bed and DD#2 in her crib and DH in our guest bedroom.
Our bedroom configuration is like this: upstairs DD#1 bedroom, master bed with adjoining nursery. So we're all upstairs. (Guest bed is main floor)

Often I'll put DD#1 to bed while I nurse DD#2 and then they're both sleeping. I'll put DD#2 in the crib until she wakes to nurse again, then I'll bring her into bed.

DD#1 has since become a more sound sleeper and DD#2's cries don't wake her.

HTH
Good Luck

 

[NotTheOnlyOne]

My two are the same age as yours. And we have the same problem. During the times when they both need me I sit up in bed with a pillow on my lap and both kids lying down nursing like this My toddler will actually go to sleep like this quite often, or at least the baby gets what he needs, then daddy can take the baby while I lie down with the 2 yr old.

On a different note, we did the same thing by letting dh put ds1 to bed once a week or so and then while I was in the hospital for 4 days (c-section) and now daddy can put him to bed no problem.... only daddy usually falls asleep too, so then our evening is shot anyway