Sleep training with an older sibling in the house

[CarolinaGirl]

Please help with my sleeping arrangement. I have an almost 4 month old. I've been sleeping in a bed in her room rather than in our master bedroom. I put her to bed in her crib between 6 and 7 pm. She goes to sleep fine. Then she wakes anywhere from 11pm-2am. When she wakes I'll either give her the pacifier or bring her to bed with me and nurse if she doesn't go back to sleep. Then I try to put her back in the crib, but usually she ends up fussing and going back to bed with me. I really don't want to co-sleep, and I'd like to sleep in our master bedroom, but I have a 2 1/2 year old right across the hall. I don't want the baby to wake her up so I've been pretty quick to respond so that she doesn't cry and wake up our toddler. How have those of you with more than one child sleep trained the baby and still slept in your own bed while the baby is in her own room? Please help. I see a pattern starting here that will probably be hard to change if I wait.

[Megande]

Do you know if it will even wake your toddler? My DS is the same age as your toddler (our babies are pretty close in age, too!). We recently had to stay in a hotel room together and I was SURE that the baby crying would wake him up, since he is not a great sleeper. Turns out, he didn't even stir. If your toddler does wake up, will she go back to sleep easily? If I tell my oldest, "it is still nighttime, time to go back to sleep," he complies pretty easily. And our brains are programmed to begin to ignore sounds that aren't pertinent to us (which I assume is how my husband sleeps through it all! :rolleyes: ). Now we sleep with all of our doors open, and haven't had any problems. Our oldest isn't a deep sleeper, either, and sometimes I let the baby cry for a little while to see if he will go back to sleep. Oh, and the kids' rooms are next door to each other.

[cgriffin]

I have a daughter who is turning 2 this month and my son is 9 months. Their rooms are next to each other and the walls are pretty thin. I have solved this problem by putting a fan in each of their rooms as white noise and it works great. It not only blocks out the crying but also noise from our TV or if we are having people over.
Also, if you are worried about the fan being too cold in the winter (depending on the temp in your house) I bought a cd online called "electric calming fan" during the colder months because DD's room gets cold and kept it on repeat in her room.
Hope this helps and good luck with the sleep training!!

[Megande]

I just looked again at your kid's ages, and your oldest and mine are 14 days apart, and our youngest kids are 13 days apart! I just thought that was funny, but couldn't edit my post to reflect that.

[mamax2]

I found that my oldest became a better sleeper AFTER her sister was born than before! She learned to become much more tolerant of noise; evolution, I guess ;) Seriously though, it's a combination of her learning to sleep through a bunch of stuff and also just her being patient. I don't do any sort of sleep coaching/training with my kids as infants. By the time I was sleep coaching DD2, she was nearly 1 and my oldest was 3+, so she was able to understand that we needed to help her sister learn how to fall asleep on her own. I told her it was the same thing I did to help her learn to sleep and she kind of got in on it. She did/does sometimes lose sleep over her sister's noise, but usually makes up for it with the next day's nap.

[magdesilver]

I will second the white noise machine reco. My 2 are right next door to each other (there's a bathroom connecting their bedrooms) and I have a white noise machine in each of their rooms and I turn them up pretty loud when they go to sleep each night. I also shove a fleece baby blanket in the crack of each of their doors and the door to the bathroom in each room (I'm a bit neurotic). I've let DS CIO on a few occasions and DD hasn't woken at all. White noise is a must have with 2 kids IMO!!
At 4 months I would still feed her over night at least once, but I think if she's a fairly easygoing baby it would be okay after that to let her do some CIO if she has a hard time going to sleep after you nurse her. Hope you get back into your own bed very soon :).

[Kanga]

We just started nightweaning dd2, who co-sleeps with us. Dd1's room is about 8 ft from ours and she didn't wake up once despite dd2 crying for 5-15 minutes, 3x throughout the night. I think dd1 probably woken up 5 times or less from dd2.

[dana b]

my dd totally tunes out ds's screaming and they're in the SAME room. dh gets bent out of shape that her sleep is getting disrupted, but she's totally fine.

[CarolinaGirl]

Thanks for the recs on the white noise machines. I hadn't really thought of it. Last night after I wrote my original post, I had the same type of night, but this time (after nursing), I put the baby back in her crib and let her cry a bit...only 5 minutes. Then I gave her the pacifier and she went right to sleep. She didn't wake up our other daughter at all. I was really surprised. I was really worried about trying it because with two of them awake and the lack of sleep, it might really be truly exhausting. I'm gonna see how tonight goes.

[twainny]

I am going INSANE!!! DH is out of town (for 3 weeks) and neither one of my kids will sleep! The baby wakes up the (almost) 3 year old. I really want to let the baby CIO, but man he is sooo stinkin' mad!!! They better both be sound asleep before the Packer game, or there will be hell to pay (just kidding!)