How would you have handled this ?

[naughtymummy]

I am a very new mother of 2. DS 2.7 and DD 4 weeks and am trying to get to grips with the whole tea/bath/bed thing for 2. Dh sometimes gets back by 630 but not always so have to do most of it alone. Totally f**ed it up tonight DS ended up having huge tantrum and falling asleep without tea at 6pm ! Then the baby fell asleep inmy arms. So had to decide who to wake up and who to leave to sleep. Ended up leaving baby to sleep whi;st i woke,bathed and tried to persude DS to eat something. Have just woken DD for a feed and change before going to bed .

Any tips on how to cope with toddler and tiny baby at bath time.

my second baby is to be born any day so i'm not really qualified to answer this yet .

My one suggestion though is did you need to wake toddler?

My three year old occasionally crashes out whilst i'm cooking dinner if shes particularly tired, i put her into bed and thats that til the morning! Have you ever tried it with your son? would he wake later d'you think?

Good question i did contemplate just leaving him where he was in the middle of a cold floor, fully clothed, but decided to change him and woke whilst i was changing him. But still not ideal way of settling either of them.

You don't have to do baths every day, unless your ds has got dirty playing. That might make it easier on you. We bathe ds twice a week plus extra baths where necessary - the rest of the days a wash suffices.

Yes i only bath dd every other day. Another thought is whether it'd be easier for you to bathe one in the morning?

I had the same sort of problems, the advice I was given at the time was that the toddler pretty much always comes first, if he has a routine try to stick to it as much as possible. At 4 weeks your dd is probably still very unpredictable. My dh works in the evenings so initially I recruited my mum to help out a bit but I knew I had to cope on my own at some point. A sling is essential for trying to make tea while baby needs you close and a baby bath seat will make bath time easier as you can do both together. Make sure ds has lots of toys to keep him happy while you take baby out of the bath and get her dressed, keep up the chat with ds while you do this so he knows you are there and you know he's not drowning!! Put dd in the cot while you do teeth brushing and then if poss feed dd while reading bedtime story to ds. This kind of worked for me but there were some nights it all went very wrong!

Bath one in morning and one at night.

We bath less often! maybe two/three times a week (as necessary if covered in mud!) dd2 now 8mths, dd1 3....
I used to boob at 4pm for dd2, tea at 5pm for dd1, bath at 6pm for dd2, followed straight by dd1, whilst dd2 was being dried off etc, then dd2 got a boob during the rest of bath, somedays during story, or somedays she just 'went to bed' at 7pm, then dd1 got a story and bed, then dd2 came back downstairs with us for her evening feeds until she was too big for the moses basket, found this also helped with the big sister thing, as dd2 went 'to bed' 1st (even tho she really didn't ) HTH's

I think you are right Lilliput, have been trying to get her settled first then spend time with ds doing stories etc. I prorably need to chill a bit and stop thinking they both need to be bathed everynight. Indeed i could bath her in the morning after ds goes to nursery.

I only bath them 2x a week as well. I always used to keep to ds' original routine & just lug dd along: bath together (ds big bath, dd small one), read story while bf'ing or while while dd asleep in baby bouncer. Put ds to bed 1st & finally settle dd in bed with feed... You'll soon find out what kind of routine will suit your 2 lo's. @ 4 weeks your dd is still to young to have a real routine & bedtime. It'll all come together in the end

I do sympathise, it's hard in the first weeks of having baby no 2, but as others have said, your toddler needs to keep his routine and the baby will fit around it. I have 2 years between DS2 and DS3 (DS1 was 11 when DS3 was born so he was pretty independant) and I did find it tough going for the first few weeks, but DS3 just gradually fitted in well. I used to put him in his bouncer while I bathed DS2 or I would feed him (sat on the loo seat while DS2 was happily splashing in the bath. It was the same when it came to bedtime. If DS3 was awake he would lie in his moses basket by the side of DS2's bed while we read stories and got DS2 settled. No point in trying to settle them together, too much like hard work. If you have to cut corners somewhere then do it, your little ones won't suffer for it and it is always best for your sanity!

I promise it does all get easier week by week.

Hi, Mine are 16 mths apart, DS1 is now 4mths. In the beginning, ie while still on maternity leave i would bath DS in the mornings and DD in the evenings, and not necessarily every day either. Now both need bathing in the evenings, so i either do DS first while DD "helps", or plays with her toys, and then pop her in afterwards whilst drying DS, or they sometimes both go in together now, but I find this doesn't work too well yet as DS too small.By the time we're finished DP is usually home so I put DS to bed while he sees to DD and she goes to be a half hour later than her brother - which she loves! I find I often tend to DDs needs first because she has no patience, and DS is very laid back and happy to wait for most things.

Mine 17 mths apart .

I had one of those firm plastic lay back bath things for ds so they both went in the bath together almost from day 1. DD soon got used to being (realtively) gentle and ds very soon got used to water being poured over him!!

I used to get ds out and dry then into bouncer whilst I dried dd. It was around this time that we switched to videos at bedtime as i found it impossible to feed ds and read to dd, so 15 mins tv whilst I fed ds, then bed.

Ds used to in bouncy chair whist dd had tea, and he was generally a placid baby so did not mind this.

Message withdrawn

Thanks for all your advice. Was on my own again tonight but soo much better, after putting some of your ideas into practice.

Made sure i got home by 430, started tea for ds before feeding dd whilst ds had tea. Yesterday i fed her first and he just got overtired and hungrey. Then all settled down in front of cbeebies (i am a bad mother) until dd passed out around 6. Put her in her bouncy chair and did ds bath / teeth/pjs whilst she slept downstairs. Then woke her when Dh came in around 7 he did stories while i bathed dd then had a lovely relaxed feed as dh was with ds. I know every night wont be like this but at least everyone was happy at bed time while yesterday i had two screaming children.

it is such a hard thing to try to get organised, my dd1 had her routine when dd2 arrived so I kind of fitted dd2 in around dd1 routine, well sort of anyway.

Firstly naughtymummy, well done for doing what sounds to be great last night.

Have 3 kids and Dh who is never here or useless at bedtime so here's my advice.

The baby has no routine and wont have for a while yet so try to organise baby's feeds so that toddler gets a good hour of your attention at bath/ bed.
If you cant put the baby to bed for that hour dont stress..
Lie the baby on a pile of towels by the bath while you bath the toddler!

Even if you have to read a bedtime story with the baby in your arms it doesnt matter.
You can still have fun together.

When in some months time your baby starts to have a clearer pattern then feed, bath and dress the 2 together. (I even do it with my 8yr old and 8month old they love it!)

Golden rule: in theory you should be back downstairs on the sofa with a nice glass of vino or cuppa in your hands just as the Emmerdale theme tune starts. Job done! You can do it girl!

Sounds like you did well last night.

I used to put them in the bath together from quite an early stage (maybe from when ds2 was 5/6 weeks). FWIW, this is what I did:

Tea for ds1 at 4.45pm, both dses in bath by 5.45 pm (with ds2 in a bath support thing which meant I had my hands free to clean ds1). Out of bath and in PJs by 6.15. Then ds1 would watch CBeebies while I fed ds2. ds2 would be in bed by 7pm and then I would read to ds1 and get him to bed by 7.30pm. this is the type of bath support I used.