We have gotten into a routine with DD 14 months where after bath, nappy, pjs DH will rock her to sleep. He has about 50% success rate at transferring her to the mattress (not always on the first go but within about half an hour) if he can’t get her to go down I go up and bf her for 5/10 mins to get her off to sleep.
Generally we’re finding this works reasonably well, nobody is too upset but the problem comes when one of us isn’t around for bedtime.
If either of us try to do bedtime on our own so the other can go out it takes hours.
DD won’t accept rocking from me so I just end up repeatedly breastfeeding her but she doesn’t get sleepy from it any more, it’s only if she’s already really tired / been rocked it’ll send her off.
If I go out and DH can’t transfer her he ends up holding her until I get back.
Obviously neither of these is ideal. We don’t go out in the evening particularly often but occasionally it’s nice to go and see friends.
Do you think it’s worth changing up the routine which we’re otherwise happy with for the 1 or 2 nights a month there’s only one of us around or do we just accept / suck it up when the other goes out?
I’m naturally more on the suck it up end of things but DH really struggles with frustration when he can’t get her down. I don’t want to be in a situation where he goes out but I don’t.
DD has never been good at self settling and I won’t leave her in distress so cc/cio isn’t for us.
I wondered if we started doing bedtimes alone alternate nights it might help it eventually get faster but don’t want it to just take hours every night instead of occasionally… any ideas?