What Do You Do with Your Toddler While Putting Your Newborn down for a Nap?

I have a glider chair and ottoman in the baby's room. When it is nap or bed time I hold both kids in my arms while singing to them. It's soothing for both of them. If my older son does not want to sit with us, I let him play quietly in his room (nothing dangerous in there for him) while I finish up with the baby. It does help to gate them upstairs.

I have a son who is almost 3 and a 2 month old. Right now the 2 month old sleeps wherever for a nap, but im trying not to get in the habbit of rocking to much. If i notice her getting tired i just lay her in the bassinet or crib and see if she falls asleep. Sometimes she will just sleep in her swing. The baby will be so used to hearing your toddler you probably wont have a hard time getting number 2 sleep and then you can just go lay the baby down and play with your toddler. I think it is just trial and error in finding a routine that works for you. It will all fall into place. We have had a rough go for a while with the baby sleeping at night especially, but now she is almost 10 weeks old and is finally starting to fall asleep on her own at night and sleep for a 4-6 hour stretch. I hope and pray it stays that way. I put her down first and then put my son to bed and it is starting to get better. It will be another challenge when i start trasitioning her into his room (since they have to share) and all ya can do is work through each new change as it occurs. It will all fall into place sooner or later, but i will be curious to see what advice other moms have since my baby will have to get on a napping scheduale eventually.

I had my two kids nap at the same time so I had some time to straighten the house and make dinner.

for naps i usually put my daughter to sleep downstairs while keeping an eye on my son and then i go and put her down in her crib so my son (2 yrs) is out of my sight for maybe three minutes. for putting down at night i let my son watch sesame street on our bed in our room all by himself which is a HUGE deal and 90% of the time i can get her to bed without any issues from him. i keep all the doors open so i can hear whats going on and check on him once or twice. definitely get a baby gate for the top of the steps and put his favorite toy or a toy thats holds his interest for a long stretch in his room. as every one else has said, it will all fall into place over time!

This was and still is tough for me, even when my husband is home. I always stuck with a routine with my baby (singing/rocking and then laying in crib) but my 2 year old daughter always ends up hanging out in the room with me and 2 year olds do not know how to be quiet! My husband will try to distract her or simply just pull her out of the room, but she will have a HUGE tantrum and start screaming. To me, her babbling and talking while I am trying to put the baby down is better than her screaming, which is more distracting for my son. Every night I just stuck to my routine, essentially ignored my daughter while I was putting my son down (she gets her one on one time with me when I put her to bed), and eventually he got used to her being in there and isn't disturbed any more. For me, there wasn't any other solution, but it isn't really a problem anymore. My son was born into chaos since he was the second so he was used to it. My daughter was much more sensitive to noise and distractions since she was the only child in the house. It will fall into place for you, just do it the best way you can. Good luck.

I tandem nursed so sometimes I nursed them both. I would have my toddler climb into bed or on my lap with me and read stories while the baby nursed. Otherwise I gave him the smallest area possible and let him play by himself if he wanted.

We don't do tv so that wasn't an option.

Early on I took lots of naps with both, but after a couple of months they never napped at the same time! :)

Good luck!

My daughter would pretty much nap wherever and whenever when she was a newborn. When we finally got settled into a routine of 2 naps a day, my son was almost 3. I told him that it was time to be quiet because it was his sister's nap time, and then I put on a t.v. show for him while I put her down. Then in the afternoon I read stories to both of them in my son's room, then put my son down for "quiet time" and then I put my daughter down for her afternoon nap in her room. It was trial and error to find a routine that worked for us, and I'm sure you'll find something that works for you too. Good luck!

We live in a ranch and while I'm putting my son down for a nap, I tell her what I'm going to do and usually put on a cartoon. If I think she needs a rest too, I will make her lay down and tell her stories while I'm putting him down for a nap. But our house is fully baby proofed and I trust her to be alone for a few minutes while I'm putting him down.

We catered to the older child (21 months apart) and let the baby get accustomed to sleeping in different places. The toddler needs the schedule so much more than the baby, but the baby will let you know what they need and when.

When I was on maternity leave, the routine was to go upstairs in our bed after lunch, turn a movie on, turn on the sleep timer and all take a nap together. Our older child was completely predictable. Our daughter was not, so I adjusted to what she needed at that time.

Good luck! The best advice is not to put too much pressure on yourself to have a schedule. Unless you have to be somewhere, be flexible with your day to help keep your sanity. There were a lot of days we never made it downstairs before 11am because 1 thing or another would happen.

I usually try to get my older boys (2 and 4) watching a show or doing a puzzle, some sort of quiet activity while I put the baby (5 months now) down. And most of the time I sit on the couch in the playroom nursing the baby to sleep while the other boys are in there with their quiet(er) activity. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. I always get the baby to sleep. It's just the older ones don't always act right. They may tear the playroom up in the 5-10 minutes that I am not able to be hands on, since my hands are otherwise occupied. Then I try and spend a little extra time with them playing a favorite game to make up for it.

Hello there! I have a 20 month old son and an 11 week old daughter. My son naps once a day from about 12p- 2:30ish. From the first few weeks I tried to make sure that my daughter was sleeping, even a short nap, during my sons nap, even if I had to hold her to get her to sleep at first (to try and set her body's "clock" to sleep at that time) and then as the weeks went on it stretched out to where she was napping pretty much at the same time as my son. I use a pack 'n play for my son when I need to be upstair tending to my daughter for a short time. He is old enough to play by himself in there for short time periods when needed. I now try to shadow my daughters bottles w/ my sons meals so that they are almost on the same schedule. She does eat more often than him over all, but I can match her bottles w/ his meals and snacks pretty closely. I put my daughter down 4 times a day for napping and the afternoon/lunch nap is the same as my son's now w/in 30 minutes or so. Last week was the first week that both kids napped upstairs for roughly two hours + each. It's amazing to have that time to myself downstairs... even if I am cleaning or bill paying, etc. The silence re-charges my soul :)
Good luck w/ everything and please contact me of you have any questions about anything. It's hard, hard work having a toddler and a newborn, but it does get better and things do settle down eventually. I had no one, except my husband, to talk to when things got rough (my daughter has reflux which made her colicky). I had days where I thought "oh my, what have I gotten myself in to??" lol, but it does get better, I promise! Hopefully it will all be a dream for you and you won't have any of that to push through, but if you ever need someone to bounce ideas off of, etc. please contact me. :)
Good Luck and Congratulations!!