How to start baby bedtime with older child

[gaffamate]

I have a 5 month old DS who currently sleeps on me in the living room until we go to bed, sometimes he wakes for an hour while we sit in bed and watch TV, other times not but generally we are all asleep by 10pm. Older DD (4yo) goes to bed at 7.

I want to introduce a bedtime soon for DS but I can't work out how to do it. Based on my DD who has been an awful sleeper I anticipate bedtimes being awful and taking ages. So if I do it before DD's bedtime then I lose all my time with DD as I just know I'll be standing next to a cot shushing away and then she will no doubt be in bed late as I'll then have to run around getting her into PJ's and teeth brushed etc. But if I wait until after she's in bed I think she'll hear me and get jealous of me spending time with DS and it'll stop her getting to sleep. I think she's too exciteable to help me and will just keep the baby up if I let her.

How do people manage it with 2 kids?

Do you have anyone else to help?

No, DH gets in for 8:30

I’m following as I’m struggling with the same thing.

Dd is 4 and in bed for 7. Ds is 7 months and sleeps on me downstairs all evening and goes to bed at the same time as us - he’s still in our room.

He has his own room but we’ve only just moved in and it needs decorating which I’d rather get done before we move him into it.

We won’t have time to put ds to bed before dd. We usually eat after dd goes to bed and so if we do ds after her we’ll eat really late. Also I worry about disturbing her as their rooms are next to each other.

DH works away a lot so bedtime is just me more often than not, though when he’s here we could do one child each.

Ds still bf to sleep and cosleeps half the night in our bed. It feels impossible to imagine putting him to bed and settling him!

Oh I'm glad I'm not alone! DS bf here too and kind of co sleeping - he's in a side cot because we have a tempur which is a bit too soft for him to be in the bed but I'm dreading him outgrowing the side cot or being able to sit up as then you're supposed to get rid of it. That means I'll have to get up all night to resettle him on the big cot next door.

I'm finding naps are also ridiculously sporadic too and doesn't seem much point trying to do anything like a nap routine with school run and NOISY DD around after school/at weekends.

My gap was slightly bigger as my DS1 was 6 when we had DS2. I used to bath them together then get both into PJs. Ds2 was still on with us at 5 months so I'd read to them both in my bed then put DS2 down with his mobile or Ollie the owl on dummy in.
Then take DS1 up to bed tick in cuddles etc before going back down to check and settle DS2 if necessary.

It did mean that DS1 bed time moved back by about 30 mins but that was fine.

I did born bedtimes alone as DH wasn't always home or of he was he was doing the washing up for me (I hate doing it 🙈)

My DS1 was an awful
Sleeper until 5 when he suddenly turned a corner and would sleep through and not need as much settling at bed time. DS2 is a dream. He goes to bed 7:30 every night o fuss and doesn't need any settling at all! So try not to think one crap sleeper means the other will be there is hope

Mine were 5 and 3.5 when DC3 was born, and DH often wasn’t here for bedtime. To be honest I just did the baby’s bedtime after they were asleep. I did their bath/bed for 7pm as usual, then bathed the baby and put him in his cot. Mine weren’t bothered/jealous.

Tempting to do bath together (although only bath baby once a week at the mo! And dd 3 x a week) but what about potential bath poo from baby?

I think I need to bite the bullet and just try something and hope it works. Ive not tried putting DS down yet really and dd was so difficult I've just assumed he's the same but he might be able to be left....maybe

Watching with interest. I'm doing bedtime on my own with a 2yo (who requires elaborate books/bath/patting and shushing etc etc) and a 3 month old most nights and it's an absolute fucking nightmare (if that's not putting it too bluntly)... I can't imagine how I'm going to work a proper bedtime routine for the baby into there too

Ah I can recommend audiobooks for 2yo, with my DD I started doing that at 2 - 2-3 stories from me and then on goes the audiobook so I can leave!

I'm actually tempted to leave an audiobook on for the baby rather than try white noise or anything as he's pretty used to sleeping through TV noise etc

i bf little one while reading a story to older one - we all sat on the bed. i had 2 years between them so baby and two year old. Then baby and two year old and four year old. Don't laugh - but then we were in the habit of sitting on the end of DS bed until the kids were asleep - so baby just sat and nursed. Then when kids were sleeping we put baby down in the cot. Depending on which child they either slept or napped and woke!

Get both of them ready. Then read stories in DD’s bedroom all together. Settle DD down and say ‘I’m going to put DS to bed now, I’ll be back in a bit to check on you’. Then hope DD stays in bed while you put DS to bed. This is what I do. It mostly works unless my older one isn’t quite tired enough. Then I get a quiet ‘muuuum?’ While I’m trying to settle the younger one. Then it’s a bit of bedroom ping pong between them. But tbh it normally works fine.

He might surprise you! Dd2 started having a bedtime at 4 months entirely by accident. She was still cluster feeding all evening and going to bed when we went, co-sleeping most of the night. Then one night dh was out so I fed dd2 while doing dd1s stories, laid the baby down just to do the last bit of bedtime for dd1, and she slept until 11pm!

It was only settling/sleeping for the evening that improved, not the whole night, but that meant I had some space and could have a reliable chunk of sleep if I needed it.

Give it a go, if it doesnt work you don't have to keep going with it. Much easier to be more relaxed with dd2, you do at least know that everything is a phase and will pass, even if it feels like a never ending phase while you're in the middle of it.

I have 3: 5yo, 3yo and 4 months. I do bath, into pyjamas then stories all together. Then my eldest reads by herself while I read another story to my 3-year-old and say goodnight to him (baby comes too). Then I go and read a chapter with the eldest and say goodnight to her. They both have audiobooks on to fall asleep after I say goodnight.

Then baby is fed and put down (at the moment downstairs in the living room).

Then I pour myself a

Short version: Do your eldest first and then the baby. In terms of her getting jealous, I'd make a big deal of her needing her rest as she has to get up for school/pre-school and do lots of fun stuff

Reading the replies you’ve had here, I think I been to just bite the bullet and try it.

I think in my head it feels so difficult that I’m putting off even trying!

@Gillian1980, honestly it probably won't be as bad as you think! I was dreading it too when DH went back to work after paternity leave with our 3rd (he works shifts so can't always be around for bedtime) and now it's actually a really lovely time of the day (we do start early, though, to allow time for plenty of snuggles and stories and no rushing). I'm sure it'll all go to pot when I go back to work, but will worry about that later!

Well it hasn't gone well today. DS fell asleep on end of school run at 4pm but DD woke him up after 10 mins, he was then up until 8pm then had 20 min nap and I've just had 20 mins of overtired screaming. I'll try to do better tomorrow!