Crying It Out When Sibling Needs Sleep Too

Hi J.,
I have a wonderful book called "Sleep Sense Program." This book literally canged my family's life!!! I can send it to you ( or to any other mom out there who might need it) if you want, just shoot me an email at ____@____.com and I will forward it to you. I could go on forever about the problems that I had with my daughters sleeping issues. She finally sleeps through the night most nights. But compaired to what we were going through, the fact that my daughter sleeps all night in her own bed is heaven! This book gave me the tools to change out bad habits. The author covers tons of different issues and solutions. I hope I hear from you soon!
M.

The obvious answer could be to not let her cry it out.

For me... before our 2nd baby came home, we explained to our daughter, in age-appropriate language, what a baby does, that it cries (any ol' time), any time of day or night, that it makes noises etc., but that she does NOT have to worry or wake either because MOMMY will take care of it.

For us, that is what helped our daughter adjust to it all and the extra "noise" that a baby makes.

Then at each age or month, we "explained" to our Daughter how a baby develops and cannot really "do" what she does, but her baby brother is learning etc. And this created in her a lot of sympathy for her brother and understanding.

My son, has a "bugle" loud voice... and his cries were doubly loud. But, still, my daughter learned to sleep through it because she understood that she didn't have to be "worried" about her crying brother or feel anxious.... that it was just "noise" but Mommy would take care of it.

Or, put white-noise in your 2 year old's room... and that may help mute out baby's crying. They sell white noise machines online, maybe at like Amazon or something.

The thing is, with 2 kids, you can't cater more to one or the other... they both have needs and phases of sleep and cries or sleep quirks or wakings. So.... then you need to have Husband help with the eldest child. And you of course have to be there for the baby for nursing and bonding and comforting etc. Because wakings will STILL occur for both children no matter what.

All the best,
Susan

I struggle with exactly the same issue, and asked a childcare nurse how to handle it. Her advice was that, if all else fails, you might just have to let your older child get disturbed for a few nights. It's only a short-term thing, whereas good established sleep habits for the baby are a long term investment.

Of course, the suggestions below are great, and hopefully closed doors and white noise and explaining the situation to Big Sis will do the trick. But if her sleep gets disturbed for a few nights anyway, well, babies impact the whole family.

This is from a old response I gave. She could be hungy. Babies need to be fed on demand. I agree with SH. I as I always say you can never spoil a baby. The more you meet her needs now the more secure she will be later. I was told this by a CHOC doctor and nurse. She is still so young she needs to be feed on demand. Is she is hungry. She needs you and the only way she can tell you is by crying. CIO is not good and could harm her later. This will pass quickly. I remember being so tired I thought I would fall asleep standing up. Any questions just ask me OK.
Sue
She is still a baby and needs to be fed on demand. My son woke up every 2 hours to eat at this age. She can be growing now. In that case she needs to eat more often. I was very tired but she's is worth it and babies depend on there mommies to take care of them. Look at the left side of the mamasourse page you can see different topics and there are other mom's with the same questions. There is lots of responses to this question She needs her mommy now.
Sue

I don't know what other responses you may have gotten already, but I am from the "no CIO camp", and so I see lots of benefits to no CIO. I don't have suggestions to helping TO CIO, though <3 Attachment Parenting has a lot of articles about the benefits of not practicing CIO--maybe those will help, if you are interested? I know that we live in a society that normalizes letting babies "cry it out", but historically and globally, this is not the case. Also, I have a BA in child development, specializing in infants and toddlers, and research is REALLY showing a lot of damage to the brain and emotional development from leaving babies to cry. Crying creates a stress hormone called cortozone, that is like acid on the brain, and it actually causes babies brains to not develop as well. Love and affection and closeness and trust are shown to create the optimal environment for learning and developing. The book The Continuum Concept REALLY made it all make sense to me, if you are interested in checking it out--it is by Jean Leidloff. My best to you and your girls, in finding a solution that works for you <3

It seems as though there are several schools of thought on this one. CIO absolutely worked for my son and took a small sacrifice. Well it was a tough sacrifice for me to listen to him cry like that, but for a short period of time. Now he goes to sleep without issues. Sleep by 730pm and wakes up close to 7am (on weekends...when we don't have to wake him up at 5:30am to drop him off at day care at 6am). I do not believe it harms a child of 8 months. That child should be getting enough food during the day. Ask your pediatrician to be sure. It is a matter of what you are comfortable with and what you feel is best for your baby and the whole family. People have given you excellent advice regarding white noise and the explantion that "mommy will take care of it". I will keep that in mind when we have our next baby. Good luck to you.

We went through this too. To start, we closed the door on the infant room (our older didn't like the door closed) -that helped.

Then we gave in (we needed sleep too) We wouldn't feed her, but would go in and pat on the back to stop the crying. It took a while, but then the younger one was able to put themself back to sleep on their own

I am all for CIO because it worked like a miracle for both my kids, when they were ages 5 mos. and 6 mos. For each of them it only took one night of CIO, 1/2 hour. If the other's suggestions don't work, like white noise, etc., just try CIO. Yes, the two year old will wake, but she doesn't have to go to school or anything, so yes, you'll have maybe one rough week, maybe less, but then it should be all over! One rough week in the grand scheme of things is really nothing. Go for it! (by the way, my doctor even recommended the CIO method, and it's the best advice I have ever gotten.) My kids are now a pre-teen and teen and they are smart, loving, and totally normal! No damage done.

Hi, the Sleep Lady Book worked wonderful for my family.

I know it's a controversial subject, but I'm also of the opinion to not let a baby CIO, especially the type of crying where you just leave them and don't comfort them or let them know you're there at all. From their perspective, you might as well not even be home because all they know is you're not there and they don't have the comprehension as a baby to know you hear them and still care about them. They just feel the neglect that their needs are not being met.
I hope that didn't come across as harsh. I just feel if you're GOING to let your child CIO (that's everyone's personal decision) try to do it in the most loving way you can and at an age where the child has some comprehension of 'I always come back after I leave'. I'm no expert, but I believe that's sometime between 1-2 years?

Good luck, N.

You don't! Just hold your baby and love her...she has a long life ahead of her and plenty of opportunities to cry herself to sleep as an adult-for now she just needs to know that she is safe and loved at all times especially at night.
LOve and Light,M..

I agree with the white noise idea, but instead of going out and spending money buying a machine, if you have a radio or extra clock radio just turn it to a station that has static on it....white noise without having to go and buy a new machine for it. If you don't have an extra clock radio, you can get them pretty cheap at Target, Walmart, etc. Play around with the volume and the location to see where it best blocks out the crying noise.

I agree with a previous poster...white noise.
Not just for when you need to address sleep issues with the infant, but in general.
I've found that the only way to keep anybody in the house from disturbing anyone elses sleep is to turn on a large floor fan right outside the doors to my daughters' rooms. It doesn't mask everything, but it sure helps to dull the noise.