Toddler bedtime with newborn

[oliveroses]

How does this work?!

My toddler is 3, my baby is 3 months. Usually DH does toddler bedtime but a few nights a week sometimes can't do it due to work. Sometimes it's been fine - I have fed baby in the room, read a story and left toddler with the yoto to fall asleep. Sometimes it's a nightmare and toddler gets upset and wired and then overtired and misbehaves. He has only just gone to bed tonight!! I left him to it several times but he ran around the bedroom and jumped on the bed and got even more hyped up. I thought I was going to go mad.

Any advice? And what on earth do I do when the baby needs a bedtime routine?!

Can't baby go in their cot?
I'd work on you both doing gradual withdrawal so that in a week or two you can put toddler down and leave the room.

At the moment the baby is at a manic stage of the evening during toddler bedtime and seems to need constant feeding at this time. It is a shame that it coincides with toddler bedtime. I guess I could try a big bottle earlier than toddler bedtime to see if this gets the baby into his cot faster but that would be bringing his bedtime forwards by about three hours.

I think you are right that we need to be consistent about leaving toddler to go to sleep by himself. We haven't been so far, so I guess he has confused expectations.