Bedtime routine with 2 - how do you do it?

[YukoandHiro]

I have a 3yo and a 4 week old. DH is a shift worker and returns to work on Monday. He may be doing some work from home but will be very busy in the early evenings and unable to assist with tea/bath/bed routine.

At the moment the newborn doesn't have any routine or pattern for sleep and is quite a sleepy baby so still only having about 3-4 hours of daytime awake time, and up a lot to feed in the night too. So I'm thinking of starting just by putting the baby in the sling and rocking and feeding while I deal with the toddler's routine. But when it comes to getting her into a routine too (maybe after 3 months), how would you do it? Bath together? Toddler to bed first then deal with baby's routine separately? How do you keep one happy while the other is being focused on (if not already asleep)?

A complication is that the 3yo has never learned to nod off alone. We missed a crucial window with that as she had severe eczema so we needed to stay with her to keep her calm and stop her scratching. I've bought an audio player with stories and toddler podcasts which I'm hoping will be a useful distraction.

Also interested in this! I have a 2 year old and 3 month old and currently have baby in sling while I do the toddler bedtime routine then bathe her and put to bed after (so 9-9.30pm bedtime for baby). I can't imagine them bathing together till she can sit up?

Anyone?

Before we got to that stage, I’d drag a bouncer into the bathroom and bedroom while I did my toddler’s bath and bedtime. We had an armchair by toddler’s bedside and when my toddler was in bed, I’d nurse the baby there in the dark. This kept the baby quiet (ish) until my oldest drifted off, and then I’d sneak out of the room with the baby.
If your newborn is anything like mine, their bedtime will suddenly shoot forward at about 4 or 5 months, to about 7pm.
Once that happened, we had dinner at about 6 and then let 3yo have some playtime while I bathed and fed the baby. Put baby down at 7pm, turned on white noise, while 3yo had bath, story and then lights out.

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I think if you’re not careful then you will end up having the long faff involved in doing tea/bath/bed for the toddler and then doing everything again for the baby afterwards and it will mean you essentially spend the whole evening doing bedtime routines and won’t get any time to yourself until 9.30 ish by which point you’ll be exhausted. So I would say to keep baby with you and without a bedtime routine (just put in bouncer and take her round with you while you do toddler routine) and then flop on the sofa and allow baby to cluster feed/snooze etc while you put your feet up and get some chill out time. Then baby up to bed with you, you don’t need to bathe them every day and at that age they don’t even need changing clothes before bed as they are often already in sleepsuits that have only been on a few hours due to poo/sick etc.

Only start doing a bedtime routine for baby when they’re old enough to be able to do it jointly with your older DD. That way at least you’ll stand a chance of having some time to yourself. Wait until they’re out of the phase of cluster feeding all evening and actually go down for a couple of hours consistently between 8-10ish and then start giving it a go.

In the meantime maybe try to work on your daughter falling asleep on her own. Yes you may have missed a window of opportunity but now she’s older you can use other strategies and techniques especially if the only reason she won’t go to sleep alone is just through habit rather than being afraid/anxious etc.

Ps. Can put baby in bath with older child before they can sit up by using angel care bath seat or similar

My oldest was almost 2 when I had my son. So I tried to establish a routine for my 2 yr old first, bath, book and bed. I soon dropped the daily bath as it just seemed to wake them both up. My son came with us, baby swing in tow, that continued until he was about 1 (and way to big for the swing). Then he joined in the routine more.

Cbeebies ending signalled going upstairs, we had a story on my bed, maybe a cartoon even. If I was lucky one would fall asleep there and I could settle the other. It was hard and I would regularly fall asleep whilst trying to settle my oldest (having a spare bed in her room helped) but routine definitely helped to settle my youngest as he got older.

@Fivemoreminutes1 That sounds sensible and like it might work well here too. DD1 definitely started needing a 7pm bedtime about 5 months - I remember it well.