Bedtime with 3yo and 10mo

[TepidCat]

We had a pretty decent bedtime routine going but DS1 (3yo) has just discovered how to open his stairgate so at the point I used to leave his room and he would fall asleep he follows me and disturbs DS2 breastfeed and falling asleep. How do you get a child to stay in their room without a stairgate?! Any other suggestions how I can tweak my routine to make it work.

I do solo bedtimes about 4/5 nights a week.
Rough routine
Dinner
Quiet play
Both bath/shower
Teeth PJs
Into DS1 room for stories
Leave DS1 and take DS2 to his room
BF and settle to sleep

We never had stair gates on bedrooms. I'd put DS (2.5 - 3 at the time) in his room with something to look at. Then settle baby DD. I'd then go back to DS and do quick story, chat and lights off. Didn't always work but giving him a book usually helped keep him quiet while I sorted the baby.

We made a huge deal of older DC being allowed to have a reading lamp and to ‘read’ before bed. The first night she sat up til 9pm leafing through books. Now, most nights she looks at a few and falls asleep. Once baby is asleep I go through and turn out the light / remove book from her face 😄

Sleepy audio book to listen to while you settle baby, then go back for a last cuddle once baby is asleep?

Thanks for rapid responses. I must have the only non compliant toddler - he can turn the main light on himself (and does if I try to put a special lamp on), he has lots of books to read, the option of audiobooks and happily does these things at other times just not when my attention needs to be elsewhere. He just wants to be with me and when he is he can’t help himself but be disturbing

Ah, so it's your attention he wants? Sticker chart for staying quietly in his room while you see to the baby? A fun treat for 5 stickers.

You definitely don't have the only non compliant toddler though!

I'd do a reward chart if that floats his boat! Or get some little stamps (to leave a little pic on his hand) and say he can have one when you go back to him if he stays quiet/in his room for the whole time that you're with the baby. Give him two or three stamps to choose from. That worked with keeping my 'baby' in bed when she became an unruly toddler! Still do stamps now even though she's good as gold now. She loves a stamp! (Helped with potty training too)

I used to breastfeed the baby whilst reading older child's bedtime story. Then say goodnight to older child and put baby straight to bed. Then if older child got up again I was free to walk them back to bed as many times as necessary until they hot the msg! Seemed to work.

Can you put baby down first? So older dc doesnt feel hes missing out

Thanks for your suggestions. Yes I might try a reward/sticker chart - not sure how successful it would be though. I might also try feeding the baby whilst doing stories. That never used to work because baby would get too distracted but you never know! Baby takes a while to settle so not a quick process. I’m just a bit crap at bedtime/sleep really

It's rubbish juggling two on your own at bedtime OP so don't be hard on yourself. I was dubious about stamps working with my DD, I was at my wits end with her. But her nursery suggested it as they use stamps as rewards a lot and the kids love them. And it worked pretty much straight away so maybe worth a go? I got a pack off amazon cause I was desperate and needed the uber fast delivery

You're really not crap at bedtimes, it's Just that bedtimes are crap.

When I had to do bedtimes on my own I’d let the older one watch some peppa pig or similar on our bed upstairs whilst I settled the baby. Then once the baby was down I would give the older one some one on one time, bed time story all snuggled up together then after that he would happily go to bed.

It's not you OP, solo bedtime is really hard work because you need them both to calm down and settle separately but it's hard to do that when your attention is divided. Working out how to do it best for us took a fair bit of trial and error (plenty of errors ha!). It's exhausting