how to teach a young baby to self settle

when you have another toddler in the house?

Tom is 6 weeks today and I am having major issues getting him to go to sleep and then stay asleep. He will quite happily sleep 2-3 hrs on me in the Moby but in his bassinent will only sleep for 45 mins (he does the random 2 hr sleep but not very often) and most of time he needs me to cuddle him or feed him to sleep. At the moment he has 1 sleep in the moby a day, so I know that at least he is getting 1 decent sleep and to stop me feeling so stressed.

How did you teach your young baby to self settle and for those of you for more than 1 kid how did you do it with another toddler/preschooler in the house? I know one idea is to keep them in their bed and pat/rub their backs....but that can take a while and honestly I can't really leave Ella unattended for that long.

thanks for all the suggestions.

Have tried giving him a dummy- a couple of times he has taken it, otherwise he just makes this awful face. am going to keep trying with this through

have also tried leaving him to grumble/cry a bit (not hard out) for 5 mins, go back and given him a little cuddle and leave him for another 5 mins....again a couple of times this has worked, but most of the time he falls asleep for 20 mins and then wakes up again and the cycle starts again. Today it took me 2 hrs of trying to get him to sleep and then obviously he was hungry by the end so I just gave up and got him up......cheeky little boy through was all smiles and cooing away at me, so at least he isn't grumpy. Now he is fall asleep in the moby.

not too keen on wearing him all day, as by the end of day he does get quiet heavy and I feel a bit sore.

Am going to borrow a hammock from one of the lovely March ladies, so will see if he likes sleeping in that better....otherwise I think i might have to book myself in to the Plunket family centre for the day.

This is so frustrating through, as Ella was the perfect day sleeper from day 1 and used to sleep 3 hrs at a time.

any more suggestions would be greatly appreciated

edited to add....we also play white noise in his room

sounds good Laura

yeah he's swaddled and gets both sides offered (sometimes only takes 1). He is normally only up for between 45-1hr, but if he doesn't sleep longer for 45 mins for the first sleep (which is true for 99% of the time), then he is still tired and whole overtired cycle starts....which is why I give him 1 sleep in the moby to get him back on track.

Great advice. We are going through this atm also so this is very helpful. The short day sleeps are a real pain! My wee girl is a happy alert wee thing but I need her to have more and longer sleeps!!!! I keep thinking I have done something wrong to make her like this