Anyone else feel like they're whole evening is taken up with bedtime?

[longleggedgal]

Sitting on the bed trying to get my youngest (3) to go to sleep after spending the last 70 mins getting her sister (5) to sleep. Dd3 normally goes bed first at 6:30 but had a huge nap this afternoon which never happens but we were driving. It's almost 8:30 and I've been doing this for almost 2 hours now and I've had no dinner and I've just grabbed 2 slices of bread and butter before putting this one to bed. They both insist on you sitting with them until they fall asleep. I'm a single mum and I'm just desperate to have some dinner and get a shower and wash my hair that hasn't been washed in 3 days ☹️ I'm counting down the days until Friday when they're off to their dads. Seriously fed up tonight and needed to vent this.

[nickblainesmistress]

YES and I don't know how to get them to go to sleep without us now? Both have night time anxiety...

[MuchTooTired]

I feel your pain! My DTs are 22 months and I made the mistake of taking the side off of their cribs (due to one climbing and falling out, the other would’ve copied soon enough!) and now they don’t stay in their beds unless I stay in there with them until they fall asleep.

On good days (which are when they don’t have a nap during the day) it takes about 30-60 minutes for them to fall asleep, if they’ve had a nap it can be HOURS.

[Thatnovembernight]

YES.

[RandomMess]

I would all get into your (I presume double) bed then creep out when they go to sleep. Hopefully one has a single bed you can go in later?

Audio CDs?

[FloreanFortescue]

Interesting that a poor mum posted a very similar rant on Saturday and got a lot of abuse for daring to want her Saturday night. Everyone seems to be on your side tonight OP!

I just resign myself to bedtime taking a couple of hours and get my head down and get on with it it's a hard slog for a few years! Have a well earned gin OP!

[Caspianberg]

Can you just start bedtime later? If they aren't going to sleep until 8.30pm, rather than spend 6.30 onwards stressed, I would just leave then playing a bit longer.
Have your dinner, relax a bit. Start bedtime at 7.30-8pm instead.

[Hepsibar]

Poor you, been there got the t shirt. All I can say does get better and then you look back on those times thru rose coloured glasses.

No help for now, but something to hang onto for the future!

[longleggedgal]

I'm glad I'm not the only one.

Most nights it's not so bad, little one will go to sleep after 20 mins if she's not had a nap. Then I get to spend some time with dd5 doing her reading and spellings and she's goes to bed at 7:15-7:30 and will take about the same amount of time. But then there's nights like tonight where I'm just sat here feeling teary because I just want a break from it all. They've drove me mad since 4pm and I was on the verge of losing my shit by 6:30pm because no one was listening
I have 2 teenage daughters and they'll ask if we can watch a film when the little ones go down and 9/10 we don't because by the time I've got these to finally pack it in and go to sleep I'm exhausted and can just about do a shower before I'm falling asleep.

[user1493413286]

I hate it when this happens; I tend to sit outside DDs (2 yearsold) room when this happens making a bit of a shushing noise as then I don’t feel like I’m ignoring her and she knows I’m there; it makes my DD worse when I sit in her room especially as it tends to stress me out too. Sometimes I just accept that I’ll get no evening tho.

[Caterina99]

Maybe try getting them to fall asleep by themselves so they don’t need you to sit there? Easier said than done of course, but both of my kids, age 2 and 4, get kissed goodnight and then I leave the room and they go to sleep by themselves.

4 year old doesn’t nap and is usually asleep within 5 min. Bedtime between 7 and 7.30. However if he had taken a long nap in the day I’d probably let him stay up an hour later as there’s no way he’d sleep (unless he was unwell). I’d prob just stick a film on for him and leave him to it and get on with my evening.

I’ve heard good things about audiobooks, that might be a way that you don’t have to sit with them?