when you go to see relatives and kids fall asleep in the car - bedtime battles!

[milkyjo]

Does anybody have any pearls of wisdom?! Ds is 3 and dd is 10 months. When ds was dd's age we could go out for the day, to relatives houses, we'd get him into his PJs and into the car around bedtime, he'd go to sleep, then when we got home (even though he would wake up) we could give him some milk, put him in his cot and he would go back to sleep for the night - lucky us hey! So today we went out, about an hours drive, we left early so the kids would be tired enough to go to bed, but yet we didn't leave early enough, we had a later bedtime. If we had left any earlier we would have had to go during desert! Dd just isn't tired and screaming blue murder. Ds not tired as he fell asleep in car and doesn't nap in the day anymore. But if we leave at bedtime ds would probably be fine but dd would need another 3-4 hours of awake time before feeling tired, that would mean midnight! I hope this makes sense! What do you do? Thanks for any advice!

Sorry, I don't understand why you can't leave at bedtime? Why would that mean DD wouldn't go to sleep till midnight?

My family live an hour away too, so I used to have a similar dilema.

I would leave at bedtime, and hope they fell asleep, then transfer them to bed. In the end, i tended to visit on saturdays, so they could lie in on the sunday morning if necessary.

I would put them both into pjs, use a blanket rather than coats so it is easier to put them into bed.

It's really tough. Neither of mine have ever transferred easily.

If it's a special occasion we suck it up that ds2 (7months) will treat it like a nap and then be up another 2-3 hours. Ds1 is now 2.5 and he takes a lot of persuading to go back to sleep.

Generally, we have become the ones that always offer to host.

We leave early. It's only for a short time then you can stay later. Or make them come to you sometimes.

Thanks. Tumble, it's because even if she has 5 minutes of sleep she wakes up properly and then doesn't feel tired. No matter how quiet and gentle we are transferring - on the occasions we have left at bedtime, the moment she opens her eyes she is properly awake! Maybe we just have to cope with it for now!

Not sure I completely follow what's happening but have you thought about getting an in-car DVD player? We have one and use it for journeys where we want DS to stay awake - as well as entertainment on long drives of course - it's been worth its money many times over (was about £100 for one that has two screens but just plays the same dvd on both). You could try leaving at bedtime and putting a dvd on so your DD will have something to look at - I can see at her age she won't be following a film properly but something like Toy Story would be visual enough to keep her attention, maybe. Or get Peppa Pig or something. If your DS is really tired he might just fall asleep.