Evening routine with baby & toddler

[MoreThanRubies]

What does your bedtime routine look like if you have a baby and a toddler? DD1 is 3 years, DD2 is just 3 months, so I’m hoping we can get out of the chaos of the fourth trimester. What kind of routine could we be aiming for in the next 2-3 months?

At the moment we have dinner at 6pm, DD1 bath and stories 6:50-7:30, usually asleep 7:45ish. I’ve been doing that.

DH has DD2 and bathes her after I’ve done DD1, then hands her over for me for an evening of cuddles and cluster feeding (EBF) before I get to collapse into bed sometime between 10 and 12. This is delightful, but I also need an evening to get stuff done, and her sleep at night is not great. (I know a bath every night isn’t essential, we do so out of habit and also baby sick/nursery grime).

What does your evening routine look like?

We have 2 kids - 2 year old and 9 month old. Our routine is similar dinner at 6. Glass of milk for toddler at about 6:45 and then head up. On bath day (alternate days) they bath together and usually out by 7:15. Husband dresses toddler for bed and I do baby and give her a feed (breastfed) and then baby in cot by 7:30/7:45. same with toddler. Both asleep within few minutes.
i pop in to toddler once done to tuck her in but husband has read the books.
i usually head to the gym 8-9 then chill with husband and head to bed about 10:30.

sometimes baby wants to sleep at 7 so we jig things by me just going up early with her and starting her routine then. But otherwise it works relatively well.

my husband also puts baby to bed twice a week (I express a bottle of milk)

I will say this routine probably became embedded at 5.5 months. Before that baby was very tough to fall asleep- needed rocking etc so could take a while.

I think give yourself time, a routine that suits your family will work for you. I found when my baby dropped to 2 naps bedtime also became easier and more predictable

My dh works most evenings/ nights so it’s usually me doing bedtime solo for my 2 year old and 4 month old.

We do dinner at 5 with a cup of milk and biscuit around 6/half 6.
To make things easier for me, I give them a bath every second night. We usually do bath time around 6:45/7ish. Baby bathed first whilst toddler plays around me and then a quick swap with baby lying on play mat and toddler bathed.
I try to aim the baby feed around 5pm so the next feed
after bedtime. We all go into my toddlers room, baby is Moses basket and toddler in bed and I’ll read a story. The toddler is usually asleep for half 7 giving me time to get the baby down stairs and then fed.
Baby tends to go to sleep around 8pm in Moses basket in living room and then I’ll move him upstairs to my room about 11ish after the next feed.

It was a lot harder to begin with but feel we’ve got into a good rhythm now . Won’t lie though, it’s tiring and some nights just don’t go to plan with the baby cluster feeding and the toddler refusing to sleep. At that point I just take everyone back downstairs for a little bit, just to ease my stress!

My kids are now 4 and 22 months old. I take them up around 7pm.

Teeth, wee, bath if needed for 4 year old (she can do first 2 independently). Pyjamas and then allowed to play a little whilst I get toddler ready.

He usually has a bath as he's at a mucky stage and then teeth, fresh nappy and pj's. Both Into respective beds (they share a room). Toddler uses a sleep sack and daughter uses a duvet/blanket. Audio stories or nursery rhymes lull them to sleep. I sleep trained both my kids so they are usually out in 20 mins or so if relatively tired. You get the odd day where there are shenanigans.

I usually read to them during the day or at nap time as I'm way to exhausted come bed time.

I do the whole bed time routine alone.

Solidarity, OP - we have the same age gap. Dd1 is 3 and DD2 is 3 months. DH wfh 3 days a week but for 2 nights, he doesnt get home until after bedtime.

DD1 has just started to drop her nap - her routine is collect from nursery between 5pm-5.30pm, snack (tea is served at 4pm at nursery), bit of quiet play, milk and into PJs by 6.30pm (6.45pm on bath nights - usually 3 nights a week as she has sensitive skin so we dont bathe every night). Then we do cuddles, stories, songs etc in bed for a bit with the aim for me to leave her room by 7pm, but often goes on later.

When DH is around, he takes DD2 but lately it is guaranteed that she has wanted a feed right at the time of DD1's bedtime and i know she is having big feelings about me not being around as much.

DD2 is currently in a research study about whether too frequent bathing of babies increases the risk of ezcema, hayfever or asthma so she only has a bath once a week (although a top / tail as often as necessary), which at least makes things a bit easier on that front.

She also has some feeding troubles so her feeds take over an hour and include breast and formula so really faffy. I'm finding 5pm-8pm to basically be a disaster every night.

At the minute DD2 spends the evening in a moses basket downstairs but she does at least sleep fairly well. DH cooks dinner and brings it in to me so that i get a break in the evening, but again, often coincides with a feed so doesnt really help with getting on top of things. Hoping DD2 starts to have a bit of an earlier bedtime fairly soon as she's doing fairly good 6hr blocks overnight at the minute. No doubt it will all change when the 4 month sleep regression hits though!

Edit to add that DD1 got a yoto from the grandparents for her birthday and that has helped as she likes the nursery rhyme cards to listen to at bedtime now.