Toddler bedtime nightmare + newborn

[JJLSS]

Looking for tips and some sympathy.
DD1 (just turned 3 yo) has always been tricky to put to sleep. For the last few months, we’ve done bedtime routine (dinner, PJs, teeth, stories) between 7-8pm. From about 8-9pm, we then have a rigmarole of DD1 coming out of her room needing water/wee/poo/socks etc . We usually give in about the wee/poo as she normally makes that request early on and about 50% of the time does need the toilet (I’ve tried incorporating it into the bedtime routine but she just sits there and says nothing’s coming). The rest of the requests we ignore and put her back in her room. Not sure if her bedtime is a bit late but we only get home about 6.30pm so not able to bring it forward.
We now have a 6 week old (DD2) who sleeps still a lot in the day but then tends to cluster feed during the evening/night. She’s also not great at self settling (as you’d expect at her age) so hard to put her down on her mat/chair/cot.
Normally my OH and I share the bedtimes but he is now away for 4 nights so I’m on my own. Last night was the first night and an absolute nightmare. DD1 got out of bed 10 times in a row – I tried the supernanny technique, gently taking her back to bed the first 2 times and then doing it with no talking. DD1 would just sit on the floor and I had to physically carry her to bed while she laughed in my face. I then lost my temper and shouted at her twice which didn’t work and made me feel sh**. During all of this to-ing and fro-ing the baby was crying so I was either jiggling her at the same time or hearing her scream in the next room.
Eventually, after 12+ getting out of bed incidents I started crying and ended up ‘begging’ my DD1 to go to bed (a real low point). We finally ended up with me feeding DD2 on the floor in DD1’s bedroom for 30 mins by which time DD1 had finally conked out (at 9.45pm!)
Felt so bad when I finally got to bed myself as know I lost all control of the situation.
I really don’t want to repeat this scene again tonight but have no idea how to cope with DD1’s antics combined with DD2. Please help!

I've just been through this phase and have now gone out the other side whereby my 16 week old now goes down at 7, leaving me free to get our 3yo to bed.

I'm not going to lie I found it tough - what helped was I would get the baby ready for bed first and then let him kick around on a blanket in our 3yos room while I did teeth, change etc with the older one. I then fed the little one during storytime with the older one soots of dimmed light quiet time.

The challenging bit is then getting the toddler down so you can put the baby to a sleep and several times I had them both yelling in separate rooms but we ultimately found a rhythm and several times I explained to our 3yo that I would put the baby down and pop back up for one final story that in most cases was never needed as she dropped off before I got there.

Hang in there - it will get easier!

Can you close her bedroom door? Or put a stair gate on it?

My DS used to do the same thing so he now has a potty in his room, a beaker of water and a closed stair gate. We sorts himself out and we don’t go up to him at all.

Thanks for your messages. Last night was better but still not great. I guess I just have to accept it's a phase ...

Thanks for the suggestion about the child gate. I'd contemplated holding the door shut in desperation but felt too close to locking her in. A child gate might be a good compromise though.

You have my sympathy! Part of it is wanting your attention now there’s a new person around (I’m sure you know that!) tbh I just sat on the floor and bf baby while elder child fell asleep. Less stress all round.

Also does 3 yr old still nap? When we cut the nap bedtimes became 100x easier due to sheer exhaustion

Oh second the stair gate!

Keep telling yourself it’s only for a short time. You still have night feeds and you can’t see the wood for the trees for exhaustion, it’ll all get easier one day. Until then jut do your best. Give up expectations of when you’d one child, that will come again but not for now. My 2.5 year old had a perfect bed routine- you’d actually video for what good looks like. Then the baby was born and all hell broke loose. 6 months have passed and I had to put them to bed alone last night and I thought to myself were nearly back to normal it was grand

I have a 3 year old DS who wakes up at night an is hard to put to bed and DS2 that is 18 weeks, so going through this with you. Like you normally have DH to share bedtimes with but occasionally need to do it alone.

I bath DS2 in the morning so there's only one bath to do at night. So our routine if DH is away is bath about 6:45 for DS1 with DS2 in the rocker in the bathroom. Then PJ's on and all into DS1s room for stories. I have a folded duvet on the floor by his bed an usually breastfeed DS2 while reading stories. Then it's lights out an we sit there until DS1 goes to sleep. Can take up to 1 hour or can just be 10 minutes it just depends. DS1 doesn't nap in the day now which I think has helped a bit. Then I sneak back to our room with DS2. If DS1 wakes in the night I take DS2 with me if he's awake or if he's sleeping I leave him in the next to me. I do worry a bit about that though in case I'm in there for a while as I know he's not supposed to sleep on his own yet, but short of waking him up I don't see what else I can do? Good luck for tonight it is hard doing it on your own. Xx

Oh yes an we have a stair gate too, couldn't do without it an a potty in DS1s room. X

Bedtime does sound quite late, at that age mine were in bed around 7pm. Why are you getting home around 6:30pm, are you not on mat leave with the baby?

I used to get baby ready for bed, get toddler ready for bed then feed baby in toddlers room whilst they settled down. It was frustrating at times but it was a short phase before the baby started to go down earlier too and not cluster feed all evening.

It's tough, I still have nights where my two tag team getting out of bed all evening and they are 7 and 4.

Thanks all for your comments. The last 2 nights were much better (combination of bribery and really tiring out the 3 yo). I guess I do have to just manage my expectations. DH back tonight so should be more manageable again - at least I should have a brief period without DD1 or DD2 permanently attached onto me, so think I'll treat myself to 15 minutes of solitude and cake/ice cream etc! Pure bliss!