What happens to your before-bedtime routine when you get home late/go on holiday etc etc?

[eightyone]

What do you do when you are not at home at the right time to do the before betime routine?

Our routine is getting good now but I know in the next few weeks, especially leading up to Christmas/New years it will be disrupted.

How old is your DC? Our DD is 1, and if we're going somewhere where we'll be late home, we take tea with us, and sleepsuit etc. if possible we bath her wherever we are; if not, we put her in sleepsuit and a travel grobag as generally she'll fall asleep in the car.

The answer is, you don't worry about it. You accept that things will be different. That dc may take longer to settle, or fall asleep in the wrong place at the wrong time. etc etc
You'll soon get back into a good routine after christmas.

4 months. And he has become very unsettled at night (takes a long time to settle down, up frequently during the night). So Im a bit scared about taking him out and making him even more unsettled. I know it is inevitable but Im still scared of what he will be like.

I was thinking of treating his sleep out of home like a nap (in his pram/car seat/sling) and then if he does wake when we get home and is hard to settle, try a shortened version of his bedtime routine? Would this work? Would most likely be home between 9 and midnight and his bedtime is usually 7pm with him generally asleep by 8pm

My dd is 21 weeks and sleep had been good till a couple of weeks ago. No change of routine (also got ds who's 2 (today!) so routine is pretty solid.
It's just the 4 month sleep regression. She screams now like she has colic but I'm sure it's just that she's tired but nosey and doesn't want to go to sleep. Also used to sleep through (except for one or two feeds) and now is waking wanting to play and not hungry.

It will pass soon hopefully.

Saying that, we're supposed to be going away for the weekend with friends and are considering not going (and losing £££) because she's become such a horror of an evening!

So-no advice but, I feel your pain.

Holidays - keep the routine up. Late nights home, bedtime once he's back unless it's very late then er we just don't. I'm very anal though because I can't deal with the pain the next day (DS was an awful sleeper when younger). DS is 2, I'll start to unclench about it soon I'm sure.

I perceive bedtime routine as being like a warning that day is ending and sleep is coming, so if I arrive home with sleeping baby who doesn't transfer well to cot, I wouldn't bother with rewinding all the way to bath etc, I just do whatever I might do in the night to get the baby back to sleep. ie feed it.

Hijack!
Iggly, I remember you giving me advice about ds when he was a terrible sleeper. He is now very easy due to (quite) rigid routine.
We decided to let it slip a bit when we went on hols in the summer and he was ok. Slipped straight back into it when we got home.

As you were.