Bedtime with two - help!

[SleepForTheWeek]

Would love to hear how others with a similar age gap manage bedtime.

DD1 is almost 3 and DD2 is 14 weeks old. Both DH and I are present at bedtime so it shouldn’t be difficult but it’s hard knowing what to do and when.

DH and I take turns putting DD1 to bed, we’ve done this for 2 years. After supper we go upstairs, brush teeth, read 2 stories, sing a song and then wait with her until she falls asleep. This usually takes 20-35 mins in total. We usually start this between 7-7.30.

DD2 starts getting cranky around 6.30 so the parent not doing bed will take her out in the pram with the dog (kills two birds with one stone). She’ll sleep for about 30mins in the pram but wakes still tired and will feed on and off until she conks out around 8.30/9. We put her in the sleepyhead downstairs and carry it up with us at bedtime. She sleeps well, only getting up once or twice a night for a quick feed.

I think 6.30/7 is actually when DD2 is wanting to be put down for the night but I’m sure the best way to go around this.

Tonight I’m trialing settling her in her sleepyhead in our room, with the idea of taking it downstairs with me when/If she falls asleep. I’m currently feeding her and she’s drifting off, but will need to be totally sound when I try put her down or she just wakes up. It’s my turn to do DD1s bed so she’s currently downstairs with her dad having supper. She’ll be ready to come up soon though and I don’t know when I’ll be ready to do her bedtime. I have no idea if this will work.

DD1 is a total mummy’s girl and although tolerates her dad doing bedtime would always ask me to do it. I like doing it, it gives us some quality one on one time together with no disturbances

Anything else I could be doing differently?

Well DD2 is asleep on my shoulder. I might try put her in the sleepyhead then go get DD1 and bring her upstairs and pray for a quick bedtime. Once she’s asleep I’ll take DD2 down with me (if she stays asleep that long)

I’m worried DD2 will just treat this like a nap, but hopefully in the bedroom in the sleepyhead and in her sleeping bag will do the trick

You'll figure it out. Can you feed dd2 to sleep while DH does the stories and teeth etc and then join him for the actual putting to bed bit? My dd2 is 17 wks and has only.just started sleeping in the sleepyhead in this evening slot. I put her in it with the dummy before starting milk and stories etc with dd1. I don't feed to sleep though.

Yes we could try that although DD1 will probably protest if she know it’s my night for the bedtime routine!

She’s stirring already, hope she’ll settle. She doesn’t usually feed to sleep in the evening, normally we have to rock her then put her down when sound asleep. She fell asleep quite quickly during her bedtime feed though.

Aaand she’s awake “. I’m now going to have to do a (let) bedtime with DD1 while DD2 rages downstairs

Sorry for the monologue

DD2 went back to sleep with a bit of rocking, I put her back down and DH sat with her while I put DD1 to bed. She’s now sleeping, a bit later than normal but luckily she was in a extremely pleasant mood this evening which is rare!

Sounds like you are doing the best fit! I found my second slowly bought his bedtime forward himself (now almost 6 months).

I do bedtime on my own a lot (it has been a disaster at times!) but I mostly have my eldest (nearly 3) watching her programmes whilst I settle her brother. It's not ideal and sometimes she has to watch them for a while but it's all I can get to work.

Are you mainly missing your 1-1 time with your eldest? I miss that to be honest and I feel bad that the baby always seems to be on my lap with my eldest sat next to me.
X

I used to wonder how it would work and seem to have sorted it (for now) with my 14 wk old. My other dcs are older but still require reading etc. I gave up reading to them for a week and totally focused on the baby. Started his bestime routine at 6ish , bath, feed , story and then into his bed about 6.40. It's taken lots of shushing and patting and feeding, and crying but now he does sleep by 7pm and I am then free to read to my other girls. It is easier to control the timing if you can put the baby down awake and get them to fall asleep in their own bed otherwise , as you know, the transfer can take ages and is very unpredictable!

Yes @Chosenbyyou that’s exactly it. I seem to spend all day telling her to be quiet while DD2 naps, ‘in a minute’ etc. Then I wonder why she acts up.

However, bedtime with her can be stressful if DD2 is downstairs crying, which is quite often the case.

I didn’t want to take DD2 downstairs for fear of her waking so I’ve been upstairs all evening with a huge bowl of snacks haha. This is obviously not sustainable for my waistline

She slept until almost 3 - that was nearly 8 hours!! Definitely going to try continue but tweak what we did tonight. DD1 isn’t always as compliant and I’m sure there will be evenings when this routine won’t work - but we’ll keep working on it