Hi Diane,
I am not going to lie and say it is easy to do EASY when you have 2 kids and i think it is very hard with the age gap you and I have :wink: but it is do-able and i look at it as an investment in how the house will run beyond the first few months.
there is a whole forum here for "and then there were 2" and you will see lots of people's experiences and tips on what worked for them. if you have not seen it i definitely recommend browsing the pages there.
if your toddler is high maintenance so-to-speak then you might want to find ways to work with your lo while your toddler is allowed to stay nearby (There are definitely some moms on the and then there were 2 board who have devised ways to do this) . for me, i resorted to putting on DVDs for my toddler when i really needed time for sleep training as my youngest was the spirited one and could not handle even eating around others let alone having a sister in the room during settling time...
i know it puts extra pressure on us, but i stressed a bit about getting her down in her window as that at least minimized the need for intervention from me - i erred on the side of too early (which sometimes resulted in some playing or whiniing) rather than too late/overtired (which resulted in 40 min of shh/pat :roll: ) it did mean getting to know how much A time was enough and then getting my toddler ready to be alone for 10 min of woindown and settling... (i woudl start an activity with her / set her up and then tell her i woudl be back as soon as possible - this worked about 60% of the time, the other 40% she would wander in and interrupt the process but 60% is a start)
by 4 mo sleep training was on autopilot and it was more of daily trouble shooting and resettling for short naps. like i said - difficult, but do-able