Toddler bedtime crazy hour - help

[escapingthecity]

We have a set bedtime routine which mostly works quite well for early 3yo. Bit of telly, bathtime, stories, bed. However settled he seems while watching telly and however nice a bathtime he has, he often turns into an absolute hooligan after bathtime. Won't sit down, jumping on the bed, running away while we try to put his pyjamas on.

I think a lot of toddlers get the bedtime crazies so hoping someone will have some ideas on how to deal with this! Baby sibling on the way soon and I can't deal with this at bedtime and a newborn. His diet doesn't have much sugar in it at all and he gets plenty of exercise.

Baths can be stimulating for some kids. Skip the bath!

Sorry can't help, but we have the same shenanigans with a very calming routine. Tbh I quite enjoy the high jinks so let him at it, but also expecting so should probably be keeping an eye on this thread as I'm sure bedtime with two lunatics will be alot more stressful

I agree - skip bath. We found baths just stimulated both of ours, so we do ‘water play’ baths before tea, then tv, teeth, story, bed.

The more tired my kids are the more they run around.

Agree with others definitely skip the bath and have it earlier in the day. Baths always hype up my 2 year old and he would take forever to settle if he had one before bedtime.

Yep-have an almost 3yo and had a similar issue. He now has a shower as I cannot be arsed dealing with his crap when I'm trying to get them to bed.

Much more efficient, and much quicker! Then downstairs for a bit of tv, cup of milk, teeth, story bed.

Took a while to persuade him to shower as he loved the bath, but it's made my life so much easier

I think it’s the screen time that’s the problem to be honest, not the bath.
Cut out the tv, swap it with more stories

It's just what kids that age do. You can try no bath and no screens but I don't think the latter is going to be sustainable if you have a baby on the way and honestly I don't think it's the reason. It's because they're tired. I would start the whole routine 15-30 minutes earlier than you do now so that you're less pressured for time. Stay calm and just pin him down as fast as possible into pjs and in for stories. Also consider that he's feeling emotionally mixed up if there's a baby on the way and that could be contributing

My 2.5 yo has dinner, straight into pyjamas and teeth done etc, down to play for half hour or so, up to bed, three stories then gets told a story in bed.

I'd cut out the TV and get him in PJ's earlier so he can jump around during that, rather than actual bedtime.

Yep I did baths either in the morning or during the day, if I did them at night time he would not settle for a good few hours after even if exhausted!

Try swapping bath and tv around or cut tv and do bath then book?

Hmmm. I do tea, straight into bath, crazy play, stories or perhaps something like gruffalo on to if baby feeding, bed. Works well. Mine need run after bath and tea.

TV really chills him out - one of the few times he'll sit completely still, so reluctant to cut that. Swapping things round is a good idea I hadn't thought of, so might try that.

Every child is different, some need calming quiet time whilst others need a good zoom around! We find our 3yo DD is too tired for a long routine so it’s dinner, straight into pjs, teeth/wash and then 2-3 stories in bed before lights out.

Try missing the bath but I would bring bedtime forward. All the extra excitement of Christmas tires them out so a couple of early nights can make a massive difference.

I did a course a while back about kids sleeping and there advice was no screen time an hour before bed.

The blue light from the TV will be telling his brain he has an hour of silliness to go though, even if he's chilled while watching it.

Baths make 2 of my 3 kids hyper so we never do them at bedtime.

DD is exactly the same, I'm pretty sure she's overtired and zooms around to avoid feeling sleepy. I also found that doing bath before dinner works well and she tends to eat more since she's more hungry. Doing bath last often ends up with her wasting so much time that she's hungry again and demands more snacks knowing it drags bedtime out even more.

I find dimming the lights works well, so she often gets a "special bath" with candles (obviously out of reach). I also keep lights dim after that and sometimes read her bedtime stories with the hallway light on and the door wide open. Even if she's hyper, keeping things dark seems to calm her down or at least she knows it's bedtime. We also play with glow in the dark toys, books, stickers, tattoos or toy projector torches (there are cheap Peppa Pig ones where you swap transparent disks over the torch and can make patterns on the wall).

When she was younger (2ish) I'd "charge up" a sheet of glow in the dark stickers using a lamp and then leave her in bed with it. She was utterly fascinated and and would study them until the glow faded and she'd fall asleep. Sadly now she's a bit older and not as easily entertained by stickers!