Routines that work with a preschooler and a newborn?

[wishIwasonholiday10]

We are preparing to have a newborn and a 3.5 year old and am looking for tips on evening routines that will work (routines for the us to maximise our sleep rather than routines for the baby).

When DD was a baby I would go to bed shortly after dinner to get a solid block of sleep and DH looked after DD in the living room until at least midnight. This probably won’t work with a 3 year old to bath and get to bed as well as dishes and toy cleanup to do downstairs.

Our 3 year old is in the process of dropping her nap and bedtime is either by 8pm when she doesn’t nap or closer to 9pm when she does. Bedtimes are currently taking longer than we want as she loves a long bath and lots of books. At the moment DH does bath while I organise stuff for the next day and put laundry away. Then I do bedtime while DH cleans up downstairs.

Looking for any suggestions on what has worked for other people with a similar age gap. Assume baby will be formula fed or maybe combination. Sleep deprivation affects me badly so I need a solid chunk and DH will be working after the first 2 weeks and also needs proper sleep.

Hiya! I’d focus on dropping your 3.5 yo’s nap ASAP to bring their bedtime forward.

Mine went to bed at the same time, 7pm (or 8/9pm in your case) . Little one would breastfeed or bottle to sleep while I read to the older one. I'd then transfer baby to the next 2 me and go to bed with her shortly after to get some sleep (when she was small).

Once you're past that stage it'll naturally start to become more obvious what a good routine would be.

I'd also bite the bullet and drop the nap.

Drop the nap for sure, and shorten the bedtime routine if you can. Bath every other night, spritz in the shower in the morning if you feel she needs it. I make a big deal of telling my DC they're so lucky, they get to pick out two whole stories tonight! And if they protest, I let them pick out tomorrow mornings story, and put it beside their bed.

Then split the night. If you're going to bed at 9, DH takes 9-1.30, and you take 1.30 - 6. Hopefully he can do the full nights while you're recovering from birth, and🤞🏼you get a good sleeper!

Slow cooker in the morning means less mess to clean up from cooking in the PM, and if you have a bad day, paper plates for dinner.

Don’t be doing dishes or tidying in the evening. Leave it til the next day. Sleep is more important.

I fed baby while Dh did bath and bedtime with older one. Then I handed Dh the baby and went to bed by 8pm. Dh had baby til 12/1am while he did some emails and other things and I slept. He brought him up to me around 10pm for a feed and then took him back. Then we swapped and I did the rest of the night while Dh slept. It meant I got a solid few hours at the start of the night. Any evening tidying could be done the next day or in the morning before Dh went to work. We were up then anyway so might as well use the time efficiently rather than when we could be sleeping.

Yes, and disposable plates and cutlery. It’s a couple weeks until you find your feet. Do whatever you need to do to make it easy. Don’t waste time you could be sleeping doing washing up. We also got about a week or two worth of Cook meals or similar. Whack it in the oven straight from the freezer, serve with salad, bin the whole lot when you’re done. It’s more expensive than my normal evening meal but for a couple weeks, it was well worth it.

I agree earlier bedtime for your oldest will make things easier. But frankly for us to was mostly me sat on the sofa for hours and hours every evening cluster feeding baby (interspersed with naps in bed if they did have a couple of hours sleep here and there) - whilst DH did elder kids bed times and then all the housework. Often meant him staying up very late at night cleaning especially once we'd had DC3.

11 months down the line the routine is similar tbh apart from 3x bedtime routines instead of cluster feeding. Eldest now often doesn't go to bed til 8.30ish and as our youngest wakes up loads of times a night for breastfeeding, I often go to bed at 9 leaving DH to sort all the housework until he goes to bed late.

Very similar age gap with our 2 as you (but we are 6 months ahead so nearly 4 and nearly 1).

We used to take it in turns to bath/clean up the same as you and your DH. Now we both bath them, my DP puts toddler to bed with a story while I BF baby and put her down (which takes longer) so DP goes and starts clean up downstairs. If it’s not done by the time I am down, we set a 15 min alarm on Alexa and speed clean/tidy as much as we can.

Agree with PP’s, being pregnant it’s so hard to drop your eldest nap but it’s definitely worth it to bring the bed time earlier. Ours was really late to drop it at 3.5 when I was 38 weeks pregnant (!!) I was gutted but it did free me up for baby wake ups etc.

If I am on my own with them, I’ll bath them together but take baby’s stuff into the bathroom with me. Get her out & dressed while DD1 brushes her teeth. Get DD1 out & we go to her room to get her PJ’s etc on while DD2 plays with some of DD1’s toys. I always lay 2 books out for DD1 to choose between (that way I can choose if it’s long/short stories etc) and will bf DD2 whilst reading to DD1. As a treat sometimes (if I’m really over stimulated) I’ll take them both to my bed and let DD1 watch a CBEEBIES bed time story. Put DD2 safely in her cot for a minute and say night to DD1, kiss cuddle and then go back to DD2 to put her down properly. All done by 1930 usually so completely frees you up to just go to bed if you need to and your husband can do first wake up with your baby? Is your eldest sleeping through?

My age is gap is 3.5 years too.

My routine used to be that DH would get back from work at 4.45pm and I would head straight up to bed for a 2 hour nap whilst he took care of the 3.5 year old and newborn and cooked dinner (and fed the 3.5 year old).

I would then come down at about 7pm, BF the baby and then take the 3.5 year old upstairs to bed for stories and cuddles etc and have him tucked up for 7.30pm. Whilst I was doing this my DH would be keeping an eye on the newborn and cleaning up the kitchen.

I would then come down and me and DH would eat together and then I’d head up to bed with the baby at about 8.30-9pm.

It felt like our evenings were completely based on split jobs and team work for about 7 months but it was what worked in order to ensure we all survived!