People whose DPs work late. Help please

[Kayzr]

My DH works late some nights. The latest is only until 20:15 but DS1 goes to bed at 19:30. Most nights he just gets into bed, has a story and goes to sleep. But occasionally(like tonight) he screams and cries for Daddy.

DH does silly shifts so yesterday he was home for bedtime, today he isn't, tomorrow he is day off and then Thursday and Friday he is working at bedtime.

How do you get used to the screams for Daddy or Mummy when it is you doing bedtime?

[Kayzr]

He is 2.2yo BTW.

[sorkycakey]

Gawd I don't know Kayz.

Does Dh do the bedtime with Ds1 when he's there?

Mine don't go to bed for Dh, they only do as they're tld for me, so I have to do bedtime for consistency

Hopefully someone will have some answers for you

[Kayzr]

He does yes. When he was unemployed we took it in turns but now I do the nights he is working and he does the nights he isn't. But we try to do it so we do an equal amount.

[sorkycakey]

has he dropped his daytime nap Kayz? could he be over tired?

[Starshinetiger]

Sorry Kayz - we have same here, but only have the "Don't want you, want Mummy/Daddy" when both of us are around - usually when I'm holding DD!

Only things we're currently trying with DS to get him to do what we want is make it a competition - "Bet you can't get dressed before... e.g. Mummy does / I've finished getting DD dressed"

Not sure that helps you much, but perhaps you can make a game of it with him - ask him to tell you how Daddy puts him to bed, what stories he reads, etc.

Sorry can't be more help.

[ches]

My DS is 2.3 and he uses "I want Daddy to GO I want Mommy" as a delay tactic.

[Kayzr]

No he is still sleeping during the day. But he doesn't sleep until late now though. He'll fall asleep at about 4 and I have to wake him after half 5 to get him some dinner.

He has started asking for dinner when I put him to bed. I think this could be because DH gave him toast the other night when he said he was hungry at bedtime.

[JennySloane]

I used to use bedtime characters to put my daughters to bed. I would then use various reasons related to the characters stories as to why my husband couldn't put them to bed and visa-versa so we could take turns.

King and Queen in the magic kingdom worked for us and so if it was my turn then I would say that the King had some important duties to attend to and would be back until tomorrow! This would make for fun stories as well as making them understand and not be upset.

Setting up a routine of change was important for us as we too had different working times.