Please tell me how to get a baby and toddler to go to bed!

[chocolaterabbit]

I have a 2.6 DD and a 13 week DS. We used to have a good routine with DD of dinner, bath, milk, teeth, stories and bed which would take about an hour and end up with her being in bed at about 7.30.

This was relaxed a bit towards the end of my pregnancy as DD decided that she hated baths and would scream blue murder if offered one so we did a brief wash over the smelly/ grubby bits and then let her play again before bed.

She now has decided she likes baths again and will have them - I wash DS at the same time, massage him and get him ready for bed in the bathroom. DD then gets ready for bed. At this point she announces she is not tired and will not go to bed and depending how forceful I'm being either sits screaming in her bedroom until I sit with her until she goes to sleep which involves bringing DS too, or I give up and she comes downstairs again.

DS is exclusively breast fed and will not take a bottle and is in a bed side cot so gets frantic if I'm not immediately available e.g. if I'm settling DD>

Dh is rarely back from work before 8 which causes more excitement.

If anyone has any tips on how to settle them both they would be very much appreciated.

[katylou25]

What I used to do - had less of an age gap - 19 months betwen them - was bath both together, ds1 play (in towel poncho thing) while I dry and dress ds2 - then dress ds1, I then read to ds1 whilst sat on his bed feeding ds2 to sleep. Put ds2 down in cot - if ds1 still awake final story/snuggle/chat before leaving him to it. I found the little bit of time just him and me really worked at the end of the day.

[LillianGish]

I had a two year gap and i used to bath them both together then sit down for a quiet video while I fed ds. We would then settle ds in his cot together and then go and tuck dd in with a quick story (leaving ds to grizzle if necessary). If he was still grizzling after dd's story I would go back and feed him a bit more to settle him - though to be honest he had usually stopped by the time I'd finished with dd. In the long run he proved to be much easier to settle than dd who I wouldn't have allowed to grizzle for even a minute. I think it wa also good for dd to see that I would give her some uninterrupted time - even though it was only about ten minutes. It made her feel special and important and not always second to ds.

[chocolaterabbit]

Thank you both very much. tried it last night and it sort of worked - main problem is that DS wants to sleep from 7 and DD doesn't want to go to bed until 8.30. I can see it will work though but probably need to focus on getting Dd to go to bed

[Jojay]

If the baby wants to sleep first, can you bribe DD with snacks and telly to stay out of the way while you put Ds to bed - I used to do that when Ds2 was tiny and took a lot of settling, and having Ds1 pottering about wasn't an option.

If you can get him down then at least you can then concentrate on DD