Houseguests and baby's sleep

[catbus]

I would guess it's overstimulation? Even if they're not being actively stimulated by your guests, it's something new in their environment that they have to figure out. All that extra brain activity makes winding down hard.

[catbus]

That I have no clue on. I haven't had to deal with that yet, so all my knowledge is theoretical, not practical. Crossing my fingers for you.

Edit: Or, baby blindfolds. Many times I've thought how handy it would be if we could just restrict what babies see. :Y:

[Brie]

We have had houseguests every night since the 23rd. C got really overstimulated with the first round of people from being passed around, distracted while nursing, toys constantly dangled in front of him, people constantly all up in his grill trying to get him to smile. His sleep was crap. He basically screamed angrily for all of Christmas day.

With the second round I kept firm limits as nicely as I could. I wore him around the house a lot which helped him nap a bit more (even though they were mostly short catnaps) and kept the toy dangling/relative passing to a minimum. I also took him upstairs to our dimly lit bedroom and nursed him there so I knew he was eating well and wasn't staying up to make up for lost feedings (and often he'd fall asleep while nursing, and I'd just stay up there with him because like hell was I going to risk moving him and waking him up). I think it annoyed the guests a bit that I was constantly disappearing with him and not letting them hold him 24/7, but tough shit.

[catbus]

Dec 30, 2012 23:52:36 GMT -5 Brie said:

tough shit.

I have a feeling this will be one of my mom mantras. For others, myself, and (a few years down the road) my son.

[gibbinator]

Dec 30, 2012 23:52:36 GMT -5 Brie said:

toys constantly dangled in front of him, people constantly all up in his grill trying to get him to smile. His sleep was crap.

This is my new pet peeve. I was trying to rock ds to sleep at a family event and I was looking away elsewhere. Next thing I know ds's head smacks into the head of someone who decided now was the time to play in his face. YOU'RE NOT HELPING GO AWAY. Icy glare.

Ojo, I hope things are better tomorrow.

[Deleted]

Good luck tomorrow, ojo.

We haven't had the issue with overnight guests, but any family gathering we've been to has been a disaster. They all start at the witching hour and everyone and their mother insists on holding the baby and getting all up in her grill. Even when she was completely freaking out, strangers insisted they could calm her down. Um, no, you can't unless you are going to nurse her. So instead I ended up spending most of the evening with my shirt off in a spare bedroom trying to get her to calm down. And then people like my dad get annoyed that I keep taking her away from the party. I think he thinks I'm being selfish by breast feeding or something, because it means he can't feed her.

[hocus]

Honestly I've never had this issue and we've had a lot of house guests and I have 2 kids (3 and 17 months)

Was there a lot of noise in the house? Do you have white noise machines? I'd consider doing a very long solo bedtime ritual.

[dcrunnergirl]

I think it's overstimulation. We still have issues with this when we have guests, like my mom, come to visit b/c the kids just get so excited to have new people around. The best things we do is make sure we keep to their schedules, not miss any naps, keep bedtime the same, and have a day or two of downtime when we just keep things simple. All of that really seems to help.