3 yo unable to self settle and night/early waking after new baby and new room

[clcurtis]

Hi,
It’s been about 2 years since I last posted because my ds up until just before Christmas has been a perfect sleeper. Waking at 7am sleeping at 7pm still loving a 2hour nap from 12pm to 2pm.

A few weeks before Christmas he suddenly got very upset when we left the room after we’d put him in his cot for the night.  He would have a cry for about 5 minutes though and then bounced about his cot an hour and a half before falling asleep. At the time I was 7 months pregnant with our second ds and was in the process of decorating his new room complete with big boy bed. So the week before Christmas he moved into his new room and he was super excited. So excited that he ran around and bumped his head on our bed frame. My husband read him a story that night and ended up vomiting, so off to A&E we went on the first night in his new room which wasn’t ideal. Luckily the bump to the head was fine and the vomiting was because he had a bug which turned into an ear infection and a perforated ear drum. Cue two weeks on him on antibiotics and in a lot of pain with his ear.  During those weeks he either slept in with us or we were in with him but in the very least we would lie down with him to get him off to sleep. It would take an hour and a half to get him off so over Christmas we played around with his nap as he was still having a 2 hour nap between 12pm and 2pm. We tried reducing to a hour for a week but he was still taking 1.5hrs for go off in the evening so we tried dropping the nap all together. We brought his bedtime forward by an hour to 6pm and he was so exhausted by bedtime he would go straight off. However he was waking up at 6am instead of sleeping through to at least 7am.

Then in the first weekend of January, I went into early labour at 33 weeks and disappeared in the middle of the night to hospital where I was for two weeks. One week in and out of labour and another week in special care with our prem baby. Luckily ds2 is healthy and doing really well. During these weeks my mum stayed down to help out and my ds started night waking. He would climb into bed with my mum as he was crying for me in the night.

2 weeks ago I got home from hospital and as we were not allowed to take ds2 out until he was full term we decided to take advantage of being home and potty training ds1. He took to it really well but was finding he was having accidents in the evening as he was so exhausted! By 4pm he was completely glazed over! So we decided to bring back the nap. Of course because of not napping in his new bed the only way we can get him off is driving him around in the car. This is something we have never done as he always slept in his cot. It’s stopped the accidents but he’s taking 1.5hrs to go off again in the evening. Plus we have to lie down with him! This hasn’t been a problem while my husband is on pat leave but he goes back tuesday and I’m bf ds2!  He’s waking at least once during the night and coming into our room.  He will go back to sleep until 7am with us though. I recently bought a gro clock but for the first 4 days my husband had it set for am when it was pm which meant it was switching off at 7pm so ds1 was completely confused by it! 

I’m gutted my wonderful sleeper is now awful! And it couldn’t have happened at a worse time with a newborn. I really don’t know what to do.  His current schedule is:

7am - wake
7:30am - milk in our bed
8am - breakfast (weetabix x 1)
10:30 - snack (apple/banana)
12pm - lunch (sandwich/pasta)
2pm - nap in the car
2:40 - wake
3pm - snack (oatcakes/rice cakes/biscuit)
5pm - dinner
6:20pm - bath
6:50pm - stories
7pm - bed
8:30/9pm - fall asleep
1am - wake
6am - wake

If anyone can offer any advice I would really appreciate it. I’m really going to struggle in the evenings as my husband works in a restaurant so won’t be here many evenings 😫

[Haribo2012]

Hi there, wow you have a lot going on and congrats on the arrival of DS2 that must’ve been super stressful.

For DS1 there is so much going on, new room, potty training and new brother, I think when I had DS2 someone said to me your first has just had his whole world crashed around him. His mummy and daddy were his world and him centre of attention so it’s bound to have a knock on and then of course with the early labour and you being away will have crashed his world. (Made me so sad to think my DS1 was suffering) but they do come round.

Have you managed to do any 1 on 1 time with him, I know for us the first few months of mummy and him time were so crucial for him, we’d go out for a cake or to buy a magazine or the cinema just for a couple of hours I was totally his world again.

Also you could try capping the nap to 20 mins, I found this was just enough to see us through to bed and then shortly after dropped the nap totally. When you say you dropped the nap and did BT 6pm and WU was 6am that’s pretty good and normal, sometimes it can lengthen but on average a 12 hour night is good and of course as they get used to no nap you can push BT out by 15 mins d try few night to get back to 7-7 if that’s your chosen time x