Hi, Moms!
I have a 2.5 yo and a 5 month old. Their rooms are next to each other. We did the cry it method for our son and that worked well. However, our daughter will be reaching that point soon and I was wondering how you moms handled this sleeptime issue. Right now, the baby has a bottle and goes off to sleep with no problem (around 6:30p). Sometimes, we can put her down drowsy but still awake. My son goes down around 7:30pm. Typically, they sleep through each other's crying but not all the time. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thank you in advance for your help.
T.
White noise - I have fans in both of my kids' rooms and it works wonders!
5 months is at the age where you can just begin sleep training - lots of people recommend waiting until 6 months. Either way, I don't think cry it out is a good way to go, but a modified method like Ferber works very well if you want to go that route. He recommends letting baby cry for a couple minutes (maybe 2-5, depending on what you can stomach) and going in and soothing but not picking up. Then leave. Repeat every few minutes until baby falls asleep. It helps them learn how to self-soothe, which i think is a really important skill.
If your 2.5 year old is still crying at bedtime, it's time to deal with his sleep issues. At this age he should be happy to "talk" to his stuffed animals, himself etc until he falls asleep - not crying. Ferber will work with him too.
put music on continous play in the older child's room and a fan on in the infant room (or music on in both - that's what I did).
N.
Some sort of white noise is the key!
As much as I hated it, our son would sometimes wake up his sister during those first rough days of cry-it-out sleep training. Fortunately, most of the "major" cry-it-out happened at his bedtime, before my daughter went to bed. However, we have always used white noise in her room, and we turned-up the volume (quite loud) during the major adjustment periods. Likewise, we used loud white noise in the baby's room, so that his sister's bedtime routine didn't disturb him as much. It worked out rather quickly (maybe a week at most).
But even today, they occasionally wake each other up. Just last week, he woke up in the wee morning hours fussing for some reason, and she yelled to him out of her room: "Go back to sleep brother...its okay!" That's something really nice you have to look forward to!!
warm baths before bed, and try maybe 8;30 sleeptime. there are some kids that just likes to cry themselves to sleep no matter what you do, strange i know, but they eventually stop. and just when they do here comes the other one who likes to cry themselves to sleep and is now disturbing the rested one. try putting the hollering baby to bed first then the other child.
