2under2 bed routine

[ekatmeerkat]

Hi! We have a 16month DD and a 2month DD. So far I’ve been lucky enough to have family help but next week I’ll be on my own and really struggling with bed time routine for my toddler! 2month DD is pretty much hysterical every evening from 5pm onwards regardless of whether I let her sleep more / less, nurse/not, rock/not, hold/not and I just don’t know how I can feed/bath/put older one to sleep on my own so any tips from experienced mummies are welcome!

[TeeBee]

Your toddler needs to get to bed on time and needs to get a healthy sleep pattern established for bedtime. I can see that you have 2 options:

1. Try to jiggle your baby through bathtime and then put her somewhere safe (where she'll probably cry but will be safe), while you read your toddler a story and get them settled
2. Get an extra pair of hands for the hour of settling down your toddler. If you can try to pinpoint the best settling down time, would you be able to get a relative/friend/neighbour to come and hold your baby for you? Alternatively, your health visitor may be able to assign a student to you to give you a hand.

None of this will last forever, I promise.

[CloudCaptain]

I had this with a 2yo and newborn. Newborn had colic from 6pm every evening. It passed after a few months but wasn't much fun, or fair on eldest. Newborn had a dummy and sling whilst got eldest to sleep. Or try to take for a quick pushchair walk for a nap while settling eldest. Try to make sure eldest is tired so goes to bed quickly. It's very stressful but it will pass and my two are amazing friends at 2 and 4 now.

[TheresALight]

I have 23 month and 5 month and was dreading bedtimes - I still don't do any bedtime baths anymore unless someone else is here and probably won't until they are both old enough to walk fron the bathroom to the bedroom!
If it's been a few days without a bath then I'll make sure they have one in the day instead, when the other one is napping!

Is your eldest in a bed? I used to sit on the bed and feed the youngest whilst I did bedtome story and then they would hopefully be sleepy and have a nap which left me hands-free to run up and downstairs to settle the bigger one if she didn't go straight to sleep.
Nowadays I lie both of them down for story time, little one sometimes makes a lot of noise but we've got used to it. Then we go downstairs and give the elder one time to fall asleep.

Hopefully it will all be easier than you are imagining. Good luck

[ekatmeerkat]

Thank you everyone! Still haven’t quite figured this out... one night little one just screamed in bassinet all through bedtime routine and I felt awful but one night she was quietly staring at the mobile ...

What is this student via health visitor option?