If you have a one year old and a four year old…

[Angharad78]

Tell me about your bed time routine.

this is currently a two-man job in my house by DH is working away for a few nights soon ans I have no idea how to manage it.

DC1 - very lively 4.5 year old. DC 2 - 18 months old, still breastfeeds to sleep.

Currently,

6pm - Dinner
6.30 - DC2 bath, teeth, story. DC1 plays
7.00 - DC2 breastfeed, sleep. DC1 bath.
7.30 - DC1 TV or play
7.50 - DC 1 to bed

It doesn’t look so bad written down but it’s killing us at the moment. Where are we going wrong?

ideal world, it would take one parent less than an hour!

Why are you not bathing them together?

Can you bath them together? And then your oldest can have a little play after bath while you're getting little one into nappy and pjs. Story time together as well? Xxx

Can they have a bath together?

it’s only taking an hour and 20 minutes. I think that’s pretty good going for two kids of the ages they’re at!

Following.

What are you struggling with? It does look reasonable written down. You could bath them together, or earlier (I’ve never done bath as part of bed time routine), just to move things around a bit.

The first few times I had to put both to bed on my own I just took them both in to my bed and we all snuggled there until they slept!

DC1 can be very grabby and a bit hyper by this point in the day. When we’ve bathed them together before, it’s ended in the little one getting upset.

I have similar ages, I bath them together and not every night. Eldest is allowed to watch an episode of tv if she can get her pjs on and teeth brushed independently in decent time. They get more attention when we're both home but we both have to do solo bedtime at least once a week so have the routine pretty nailed down.

Why not bathe them together, let DC1 play or listen to an audiobook whilst you put down DC2 then do bedtime right away with DC1 so they going to sleep earlier.

Almost 8 seems late if they're not napping anymore

This may be more of a character issue than logistics. The older one can be wild, the younger one is clingy and easily disturbed.

maybe getting them both bathed and the older one playing in their room while I nurse the baby might be a solution now that I write it down….

I know a mum who told me she uses one of those bath shelf's as a divider between her children

6pm - Dinner
6.30 - Both in the bath and brush teeth.
7.00 - DC2 stories, breastfeed, sleep. DC1 watches TV (or ideally listens to an audio book or plays).
7.30 - DC1 stories
7.50 - DC1 to bed

Alternatively do stories together and get DC1 to bed earlier if you think they'll settle earlier.

That’s genius! googles bath shelves

At this age, we also did one child each, it's just easier.

TBH when we did have both kids, at this stage, I just put the TV on for DS1 while I sorted DS2.

My top tip is to have a snack before doing bedtime with both kids for the first time so that if it takes a while you're not hangry

I think that is really good going. As people have said previously bath them together. Then the older child can still have a play after the bath. We do a story together too.

I doubt they would. They’re often still awake at 8:45/9.

they have a tonie box but they don’t really like it much.

Our routine wouldn't work for every family but we don't do bath as part of bedtime routine and have tea super early 🤣.

4pm tea
5pm baths (sometimes together, sometimes eldest has a quick one while I dry the 1 year old)
6pm supper and milk
6.30 upstairs for stories and teeth
7pm bed for 1 year old (4 year old reads stories or watches something chilled on the tablet in bed) then go in and do eldest bed time

It's a long routine but because it's not rushed it just feels like part of the day.

So for us:

5.30 tea time
6pm bath time (both go in together, straight from dinner table)
6.30 they both play together in oldest’s bedroom and have a story
7pm bedtime for both - both sleep for 12 hours overnight and are up between 6 and 7

Mine are a bit older now but same age gap. I basically did them together at that age. Bath together and teeth at the same time, then oldest could choose whether to come in for story time while I settled the youngest, or play quietly in her room. Then through to do story for the older one.

It worked pretty well most of the time. The only difference is my youngest didn't feed to sleep.

What time does your 4.5 year old wake up in the morning?

Give the little one a quick bath then get 4 year old in add bubbles and toys and change baby into pjs in bathroom and breast feed while older one has bath. Then baby down ( even if not asleep) older one out pjs, teeth. Hopefully by then baby is asleep, but if not all sniggle for stories in your bed.

Joint bath for 15 mins and my top tip is to duplicate all the bath toys to avoid squabbles, then DC1 watched TV in our bed whilst I did DC2 and then it was DC1’s turn. For each it was 1 story, kiss goodnight and then close the door. And that continued until the eldest started showering herself. Took maybe 40 mins total so I reckon you could definitely squeak it under an hour even with time for breastfeeding. If the joint bath really is a no go then I’d alternate bath nights; every other night is fine when they’re that young! No way would I be doing 2 baths every night.

I had a similar age gap with DDs. For personality reasons, we went through a phase of separate stories. DH would read to one and I'd read to the other. I can't remember having to deal alone though.

Since you're on your own could you ...

• start earlier (work permitting) so that DC1 is less fractious; sounds like he (and DC2) is at the end of his tether by that time of day
• do bath and teeth together; then DC1 plays whilst you settle/feed DC2;
• offer DC1 a special treat (extra telly? second story?) for being extra quiet so DC2 goes down easily

or (lazy mummy here) just skip bath all together? also, try to bring DC1 on board as 'helping' and being 'extra grown-up'

They don't need a bath every day. I bathe mine every couple of days and together.

Our bedtime routine is like this:
7:00 - read books to 5 year old, 13 month old can listen (sometimes does) or play on the floor
7:20 - 5 year old goes to bed, can listen to tonie box. 13 month old breastfeeds.
7:30 - kids asleep. Sometimes the eldest stays awake listening to the tonie box till 8pm. If not asleep by then it's turned off.

and remind yourself that it's just for a few (hellish?) nights :)

Usually around 8am.