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!

I think we do baths because they’ve always felt like such a major part of DC1’s bedtime routine. Lock down baby, god knows there wasn’t much else to do in the early evening. Maybe we should try changing it as it’s not necessary.

I’m not surprised they aren’t going to sleep until 8:30 or 9pm then. I’d be waking them up earlier. Getting DC1 asleep promptly would be the easiest way to condense the whole process down. 4.5 yo on average sleep for 10.5-11h at night. If you want them asleep for say 7:45pm I’d be getting them up around the 6:30am mark.

We never did bathing every night.
Too much trouble and time wasted. We did if needed and after nursery.

No tv. Just reading a book.