Q&A: 2-year-old waking up after new baby arrives

Jo-Ann writes:

"I am a WOHM of a two boys who are 2 years old and a 5 month old. Things with the baby are great.  I have been so lucky that he has been a great sleeper since he was born. We cosleep and he might wake up once to nurse but sometimes he doesn't wake at all.

My two year old is having the issues. He is having major issues in daycare. He is acting out and testing constantly. He was home with me for over half of my maternity leave and we had the best summer ever. He has now been back in daycare for almost 3 months and is still acting out. The daycare have been working with him and things seem to be getting somewhat better.

I nursed him throughout my pregnancy and in late September he decided to wean in the evening and now we are just nursing before nap on the weekend. We have replaced his evening nurse with reading books for closeness. He seems to be ok with nursing on weekends and only asks to
nurse then.

Now his problem has become night waking. He has always been a pretty good sleeper and for the last 7 months he has gone to sleep at about 8pm and has woken up at about 6 - 6:30 am.  The past week he has gotten up at midnight, 2,3,4, and up for the day 5:30am.  Each time he wakes and yells and screams for Mommy and Daddy. One of us goes to him.  He is easily calmed and goes back to bed.

To say the least I am a walking zombie.  What is funny is that people expect I'd be sleep deprived from the baby but I am not.

Any ideas would be appreciated!"

Geez does this sound familiar. Only my older one was 3 when his brother was born, and I don't WOH. But other than that it's the same story. Mine went through a period of acting out a ton (eased when my husband was home to run around with him all summer) and then a long stretch of waking up every night. It was a different thing every night--sometimes having to pee, sometimes having wet the bed, sometimes having a bad dream, sometimes hearing noises, etc. I sooo identify with being sleep deprived from the big one but not the little one. It also happened exactly this way when a friend of mine had her second (they were 17 months apart)--the baby slept like a champ but her toddler was up 6 times a night some nights.

It has eased* for us in the past few months, though. I don't think we did anything. I think it was just the passage of time and his process adjusting to the New Normal. The little one has been here for almost 8 months, so El Chico may just be getting used to him and to not being the only kid in the family.

But I honestly have no idea. Readers? What do you say?

I'd really like to hear from some parents who have younger kids older than, say, a year, who can tell us whether this is something all olders seem to go through or not. And any parents of three or more, did this happen every time there was a new baby?  If there was a gap of more than 4 years between the older and younger was there still this acting out and sleep disruption? In hindsight do you think there's anything that can be done about it (aside from the obvious trick of spending as much time with the older as possible)?

*By "eased" I mean that El Chico's sleeping better. El Pequeño now seems to be heading into the 8-9-month sleep regression. Ha. Ha ha. Hahahahahahahaha. Sigh.

Comments

[Lissa]

Not sure if this is helpful or not - me and my sister are 5 years and 5 months apart - but I spent about 6 weeks in a NICU since I was 8 weeks early and this was 30 years ago. My mom said my sister was actually really angry with my mom when she came home from the hospital without me. When I did come home, my sister wanted a bottle - so my mom gave her one - after a few days, she didn't want one anymore. As for the sleep thing - we shared a room for as long as I can remember. My sister remembers waking me up in the middle of the night to get attention from my parents. She said she would shake my crib until I would wake up, then she'd climb back in bed and when my mom would come in to soothe me - she would claim I woke her up - and she would get some snuggles and soothing too. I don't know if that really helps or not - but I do know my sister said she did it a lot. My mom probably thought I was an awful sleeper - when all the time, it was my sister's fault ;)
This really interests me though as my 15.5 month old still isn't a great sleeper - and #2 is due in June - yikes!

[Bobbi]

I have 3 kids, ages 6, 4 and 5 months. I'm not so sure that this is related to a new baby as much as just a toddler phase. My oldest went through this briefly at around 2, but then so did my son and there was no new baby to blame. Both of them were around 2 when it happened, and both of them grew out of it in a month or 2...Neither of my older kids had any issues with the new baby, but then maybe they were just old enough to handle it better...

Not sure if this is helpful, but know that it won't last long!!

[MFA Mama]

My three are four and a half, eighteen months, and fourteen weeks. My oldest woke frequently (and suffered a potty-training regression involving many bed wettings) when the middle one was born (he was three at the time), and became a nuisance at bedtime (the rituals dragged on and on). Then things settled down when the baby started sleeping through the night and we had a brief reprieve before the third one arrived. The oldest again started waking in the night (sometimes to pee, sometimes from a nightmare, or "monsters," a couple of times from a wet bed; by now he was four) but the middle one, a toddler, was unfazed and slept on unless some particularly loud howling woke him, and then he would go back to sleep easily enough (unless he was sick). I think until they're about eighteen months old (the middle guy was not quite fifteen months old when he became a "big" brother) they don't have enough of a grasp of what is happening to be all that disturbed by it (except in the "I want cheerios NOW" kind of way when you're busy with the baby, which could just as easily be something on the stove or a trip to the bathroom or anything else delaying their gratification).
Right now I'm looking forward to the day when they will ALL sleep through the night. Ahhhh...

[Jamie]

My four boys are 8 months, 3, 6, and 9. IME, a new baby always disrupts the sleep of the "displaced" sibling, the one who used to be youngest and is no longer.

One suggestion, easier for me to make than for you to take, would be to respond to night-waking in as low-key a way as you can. If he knows it's driving you crazy and he has the right kind of temperament, it could feed the problem. Negative attention is still attention.

Second idea would be to see what you can streamline right now, because this is a big load for you. Somebody else could do some of your cooking or maybe your laundry or your cleaning, but nobody else can be the mom for a 2yo who needs to figure out that you are always going to be there for him. If you can nap during some of the time when you might otherwise be catching up around the house, you might find that you're much more able to enjoy your 2yo and be patient with this developmental bump in the road. Which might, possibly, be all he needs to ease out of it -- the certain knowledge that you love him just as much as the baby, even when he is a screaming pain in the butt.

Lots and lots of sympathy coming your way -- settling into life with two was by far the hardest adjustment I've had to make as a mother.