Please help me learn how to put two children to bed!

[Merename]

DD1 is 3 and DD2 is 5 months. Both are usually ready to start bedtime routine at he same time, round 7, baby sometimes earlier depending on last nap. 6 nights out of 7 DH is there and he puts older one to bed and I do baby. He’s only had this evening commitment for the last few weeks so I am only just having to learn how to do both myself.

How is this even possible? Tonight I tried to put baby down first as she hadn’t fed for a while and I knew she wouldn’t make it through DD1’s routine. Gave DD1 night garden on laptop - wouldn’t usually do screens at bedtime but no choice really, she can’t play alone for long enough to feed - 20-30 min. This all went fine, put baby down drowsy as often do but tonight she didn’t settle. Left her to try while started stories with DD1 but baby increasingly distressed and left crying more than I’d like. Explained to DD1 and went to baby. She waited, came back, loads of praise and told her extra story as reward. Then baby woke again screaming! Went to settle and just as did, DD1 came in shouting for me, baby awake again. This whole back and forth went on for 1.5hrs before DD1 went to sleep herself with music playing and I had time to settle baby properly. Arggggh I need a gin but I don’t drink.

DD1 has just started nursery and going through a big emotional time and I feel so much mum guilt about barely meeting either of their needs.

I know plenty of you will do bedtime yourself much of the time. How do you do it?!!

Keep baby with you while you do story with DD. If possible I would try and time it so that baby could feed while DD was having storytime.

Do they have a bath every evening? I would bath them together and have everything in the bathroom so your DD can dry and Pyjama herself while you do baby and then teeth, and into her room for story (feed for baby).

There were just under 4 years between my two. I remember doing a lot of breastfeeding while sat in the toilet lid as DS1 was in the bath.

Yes, bath them together, get baby out and in pyjamas while older DC plays in bath (pjs laid out on landing maybe), baby lies on floor while you dry and dress older DC, brush teeth. Then both into your bed, feed baby while reading story to older DC all snuggled up. Pop baby in cot, bedtime routine with oldest, tend to baby again if not settled.

Both up early,
Bath together as necessary.
My oldest will go and play now, whilst I put youngest down, but before that we all used to go into my bedroom for stories on the big bed.
Baby would fall asleep listening to stories having milk. i'd put baby down and take oldest to bed.

We transitioned to separate bedrooms for the routine when they got a bit older.

Yes, definitely feed the baby while reading stories if at all possible. And then DD1 into bed with music and a promise you’ll be back soon and a sticker if she stays in bed until you get back, then settle the baby.

I had three under 4 at one point (they're now 3 under 5.5), I did exactly as ILoveMaxi said - bathe all of them together, same time every night. All in pyjamas and ready for bed. kept baby with me. Whether that was in bouncer or sling, baby was with/on me with a bottle/breast If needed whilst I delt with my (nigtmare) older toddler/keep putting middle one back to bed.

**by up early I just meant give yourself loads of time don't wait until they are overtired!

It's hard. We have baby twins and a 3yo and one person does one baby while the other does 3yo first, story etc while cuddling/ feeding baby; then it's lights out for the 3yo and get the baby to bed afterwards.

Oh thanks so much everyone. Baby is currently at the stage where she won’t really feed if there are distractions, is constantly on and off, which is why I haven’t fed during stories. However she always has a huge feed before sleep at bedtime, so maybe she’d be motivated enough to stay on the job. I like the stories on the big bed idea, as that’d be a more familiar place for baby to feed and DD1 would probably feel she’s getting a treat. We don’t bath them every night - twice a week if they are lucky!

Prior to tonight I’ve just brought baby in to sit and read stories with us before DD1 lights out and then go feed baby, which has been challenging as DD1 is only just starting to go to sleep without us in the room, and baby always getting cranky by the end, but it’s vaguely worked. Tonight was awful, I’m hoovering in mini cream eggs now for comfort...

It will get better I promise.
19months between mine and the youngest has CMPA so screamed for the first 3months of her life

Bath them together.
Get baby out and changed while older is still in bath- in bathroom obviously so oldest isn't unsupervised.
Get eldest drying and dressing for bed herself as much as you can.
My eldest still had milk at bed time so I''d nurse baby and she'd have milk while we had a quiet story.

Audio books are your friend for the eldest of baby is being fussy.

Don't put too much pressure on yourself.

Find what works - if that means eldest goes to bed earlier or later so be it.
If she goes before baby she can be a big girl and read herself a story before lights out.

Bedtimes won't work if anyone is stressed.

You will find your families rhythm.

Mine are 12 and 10 now and it is still 7:30-8 get ready for bed. 8-8:30 quiet reading. I say goodnight to youngest first and then the 12yr old can read until she is ready for lights out. Generally this is 9-9:30 latest. Putting them to bed at different times never worked because the youngest just wouldn't sleep if she thought her sister was getting something more than her.

If baby needs quiet to feed then bath them together then let baby play while you read to dd and put her down, then read to baby and feed her when dd is asleep. Maybe consider starting bedtime half an hour earlier so it doesn't take up your whole evening?

I had recently a newborn, 2 yr old, 3 yr old and 5 yr old.

Newborn in arms. Very strict and consistent with older kids. Evilest toddler gets phone to get her quiet and calm while I took baby in to 3 yr old for a story. 5 yr old gets to watch TV while I sort other two. Then baby into cot as usually drowsy having been dragged around doing others bedtime and then 5 yr old into bed with a story (while baby sometimes whinged etc. If crying too much, would bring in with 5 yr old for story).

Your 3 yr old is old enough to wait without extra treats for doing so. Be kind and apologetic of course but coming in when you’re settling the baby is not on and it’s ok to tell her so. Bedtime really requires a lot of strict and consistent rules. I find many people don’t like enforcing them though so bedtimes can be a nightmare for years and years for them.

I found I just had to be a bit flexible with the timings (2.3years age gap). So if my toddler didn’t nap and was going to bed early then bring baby in to his room for story. Or if I was dealing with the baby first, then iPad time for the toddler with him ready in pjs for bed immediately afterwards.

To be honest I think the main thing that really helped was the toddlers routine being very streamlined and DH and I being both on the same page with it, so whichever one of us was doing it, the routine was the exact same. 2 books only and very strict with it, then kisses and light off. Then on the odd occasions when the baby was screaming the place down, it was only for a max of 10 minutes. Which still sucks, but at least one is sorted and then you can devote your full attention to the other one, rather than half to each.

I pretty much always do bedtime alone. When DS2 was a baby, I either bathed them together, or let DS2 play on a playmat in the bathroom while DS1 bagged. I then fed and cuddled him for most of story time. Initially, I cuddled him to sleep while I sat with DS1, but once DS1 was happy to go to sleep independently, I would take DS2 to his room and put him down, staying there until he went to sleep.

Our routine is actually still pretty similar (minus the feeding DS2) now, and they are 3 & 6.

Mine are 5, 3 and 6 weeks. I do stories for the 2 older ones in my bed while feeding the baby, then have baby over my shoulder while tucking the older two in and saying night night. They both go to sleep alone though and have done for a couple of years so it’s easier.

21 month gap here, I do the getting them to sleep biy by myself every night while DH runs around and does jobs. Like others once the baby got big enough, we bathed them together and then all lay together on the spare double bed in DS's room to read stories while feeding. DS wouldn't settle without someone in the room with him so I used to stay there and feed DD to sleep lying down. We later transitioned to me feeding through stories and then rocking to sleep in the rocking chair still in his room.

When mine were little (I had 3 under 5 for a year) I looked at bedtime as a bigger picture. I asked myself who needed to get to bed first (often the eldest because he wasn't having naps and had school) and who was the easiest to get to sleep. I then balanced all of that to decide my order of things. It was often challenging but did not last forever!

I remember lots of this (2 years between my 2). In the end I found it easier to focus on getting the 2 year old to bed while baby generally screamed, sometimes while I held her/breastfed etc...…..but mostly the screaming/fussing wherever she was due to time of night.

The key is getting 2 year old to settle in 0.1 seconds- well, to go to bed without you with a quick 'goodnight' tuck in, leave the room. While this seems dramatic now, both of mine do that 99% of the time, and bedtime is a dream, they're 1 and 3. People are often like 'oh, that was quick, theyre in bed? really? wow'

There will be nights when everyone cries, on the bright side it stops these crazy routines some people get stuck in of humming, hand stroking, back patting, head stroking etc, because you just CANT. Its not an option and I promise youll thank your lucky stars in a year or so...………...this time will pass...….

Mine are now late teenagers (20 months between them), but I wish they were still tiny, OP.

I did all the bedtimes myself. I eventually worked out that it was better (for us) for the baby to go in her cot before DC1 went to bed. This gave him the sense of 'older sibling'ness.

I bathed them together, then read them stories together while DD had her bottle. Then she went to bed (if she fussed, that was too bad - this is the lot of second-borns), and DS had extra stories. Then he went to bed.

I have no idea what I would have done if screens/iPads etc had been available then. It's easy to be all smug, but who knows. We didn't even have a telly (my choice). Sometimes it might be a good idea to pretend these things don't exist, and see how you would deal with the situation then. It is hard work, though.

Thank you all, especially the solidarity comments. At least I don’t have to do it again til next Wednesday! I will be more mindful of baby’s last nap time etc and do my best to stretch it til later so can keep her going through DD1 routine. @Mummyamy123, I think you are right, we probably wouldn’t have pushed DD1 to learn to go to sleep herself if it weren’t for this, and stuck with our singing and lying with her routine, but given she had to do it a few times on my nights, she showed she could do it and we started insisting on other nights. She’s doing pretty well with it but asking her to wait while I settle baby for ages is more than she is capable of just now. Baby also tends to go to sleep herself fairly well but yes sometimes the stars collide unpleasantly. I aspire to that dream bedtime so will keep working on it!

I also will remember the tips about being flexible and deciding who needs what on the night, makes sense. Whilst remembering last night I tried to do that and it was an epic fail! Every day a school day in this mum palaver.

Mine are 21 months apart. I used to bath them together, then we all sat on DS1's bed and I'd feed DS2 while reading stories and cuddling. When we were done, I'd say goodnight to DS1 and out DS2 to bed. I've got some lovely memories of the three of us snuggling up reading 'the tiger who came to tea'.

Wait for one to go to sleep, then put the other to bed. It's the only way.

I couldn't feed during stories either and the baby would be ready for bed before DC1,however feed and upright holding (reflux) would last a whole hour so DC1 would be wandering in being noisy after 20 minutes of screen time.
If I'm honest, I never found a way to make this work. The more I asked DC1 to occupy herself/ be quiet whilst I put the baby to bed, the less it worked. In the end I resigned myself to it not working and relied on my inlaws to come over and do DC1s bedtime whilst I did the baby.
I'm sure there are ways to make this work better but I was so knackered/frustrated that I admitted defeat in the end.

Now DC1 is older and reflux improved she can watch 20 mins of TV whilst I spend 20 mons doing DC2s bedtime. She still wanders im sometimes but is older and more understanding and less noisy.

That’s funny you say that, @SecretH, DD is not bad at playing alone if initiated by her, but if ever asked or told to it’s very difficult. I suppose she feels a bit left out when actively excluded. But she needs to learn to deal with this! My mum lives an hour or so away and doesn’t drive, so will help if around but can’t rely on that every week. I imagine time will help and hope that DD will get the hang of the expectation that as the oldest she has some responsibilities and special privileges also.