Any tips for working mums'night time routine

[Jones80]

Hi,
Im looking for tips from working mums please? I have to get up early for work and my LB starts nursery at 7am. he has fun but doesn't really nap so can be very tired when we get home around 5. Sometimes he is so tired it's straight to bed and he falls asleep on the bottle. If I try to keep him up, and go through a short nighttime routine, he can do the complete opposite and stay up very late as I've missed the 'sleep window' . how do other mums manage to fit it all in?

how old is he? They should make sure he naps. I'd be speaking to the nursery. TBH this is why I used a childminder - I only found one nursery when looking that put any emphasis on naps at all, and they're really important when they're little.

just to add - the purpose of a bedtime routine is to help them fall asleep. you're not failing if you don't do it and he sleeps anyway - if he sleeps ok the rest of the night then don't beat yourself up

Hi, he is just coming up to 12months old. Nursery tell me they try to get him to nap but he gets too distracted. At home he has 2 straight naps a day at 9:30 and 1 but at nursery (on a good day) he has 45 mins around 12pm. I'll keep pushing for the daytime naps and fingers crossed they start so I can get some quality time.Having time to do the bath and story without him being overtired would be wonderful as it's the only real time we get together during the working week.

He's 11m?! The poor boy definitely needs a nap! How does he fall asleep at home? He may need a different routine there and might require a bit more effort from the staff in the beginning but they should know all this.

I agree, he napped fairly well when he first started nursery but now he crawls they say they spend ages trying to get him down but he refuses. At home he is fine napping, he will normally have a morning nap for 1.5hrs and the same in the afternoon. I've run through how we put him down with his nursery worker (it's nothing specific, just a cuddle till he starts to drop off). They say they try to follow it but that he is easily distracted. Without sitting in nursery with him I don't know what more I can do really?

I agree with northernruth if he sleeps through if you have to put him straight down to bed when you come in, then I certainly wouldn't worry about the 'bedtime routine' my DH works nights and shifts so often it's just me at bedtime and with a 3.5 yro and 19 month old we don't ways do the standard 'routine' but we do what works for us and they still sleep through. However if it's a case that he wakes up then I would certainly be having a word with nursery particularly for an afternoon nap. Do they not have a quiet area, my son's nursery have a separate area away from all the 'background' noise so when it's nap time they can sleep.

I should also add that my 19 month old sleeps for fun at nursery 2-3 hours at a time, yet he never does that at home. Secretly wishing sometimes he would ha ha !! I always thought it was because of the distraction/noise of elder brother, but there's much much more noise / distractions at nursery but he just sleeps, so I don't know why this is.

Our nursery have a few cots at the back of the room but it's not separate or quiet, especially compared to home where we have the black out blinds up permanently. Thanks for all the advice , I have asked nursery to pay more attention to his naps and run through exactly what we do. Hopefully I'll see an improvement. he has started waking a bit more during the night but I'm resigned to having broken sleep now. It's amazing how long you can last working full time and doing everything else without a full nights sleep!

Oh I know !! A few weeks ago I went to work with just under 4 hrs sleep. Youngest was having a nightmare for 3 hours!!. And that's after being up at around 7am.
Glad you have spoken to nursery but like I said in my PP our situation is a bit different so we (i) as it's mostly me at bedtime do what suits us so I really wouldn't bother too much about the routine and just do what suits you and your son- whatever that is to get some sleep ha ha !!