Solo bedtime with 3 month old and 3yo

[CaBro]

I have a 3 month old and a 3 year old. Most of the time my husband and I take one each for bedtime, but sometimes he has to be out at work in the evenings. How do people cope? My 3mo needs to go to bed first, and often I can put him down and he's happy to drift off to sleep, but sometimes he really cries. If I stay there to comfort him, I've left my 3yo roaming the house when he should be going to bed. If I leave the baby and only go in periodically then I'm basically doing Ferber with a 3 month old!

Similarly for naps - up until now most naps have been in the carrier so I can be with both children at once. But it's getting harder to get my baby to sleep and stay asleep in the carrier, which means I can't interact with my 3yo the way I want to when the baby is asleep on me. I'd like to get the 3 month old more cot naps, and some of the time he settles easily, but what do I do if he gets upset? I can't just leave the 3yo to get on with it! And equally, I'm well aware of the advice to be with baby for all sleep up to 6 months, but this seems unrealistic if you have another kid.

What do other people do?

(BTW, baby won't nap in the pram, or in a cot in the same room as my toddler is playing in)

I don’t cope is my answer. Honestly it’s an absolute nightmare at bedtime for me and my two little ones. I haven’t worked out how to do it yet so am following to see if others have some pearls of wisdom.

I would take them both to bed at the same time, hold and cuddle baby while reading to older one - or get older one to help with bedtime rather than leave him wandering. Both into pjs together, read to them together then tuck in big and let him read or play with dimmed light in his room while I settled little.

I hate solo bedtime with them both. Mine are 3y11m and 14m but I've done the same sort of routine for the past year.

I take both DDs upstairs around 6.15pm. Bath if its bath night (always bathe them in the bath together at the same time to make it easy). PJs / night nappies on etc. DD1 has some quiet play with dolls / teddies etc or maybe something like In The Night Garden on tv in our bedroom whilst I feed DD2. I often put my pjs on at this time too! We all do teeth brushing and I put DD2 in her sleepsack. By 7pm, we go into DD1s room, I sit in a chair with DD2 and DD1 either sits with us in the chair or sits in her bed. We do 2 stories and then
DD1 chooses a Yoto story to listen to. By the time that's done, DD2 will have fallen asleep on me so I move her to her sleep space and leave DD1 to go off to sleep by herself. I try and have it all done by 7.30pm.

I have been cosleeping with DD2 so normally I'd then go to bed with her and watch tv / scroll whilst she sleeps, but we've recently started moving her to a cot, so hoping I'll get some more of my evening back soon.

At 3mo, both DDs were still downstairs with us in a moses basket until we went to bed at 10/11pm ish. We only started a formal bedtime routine once the night feeds had spaced out a bit around 4-5months. Alternatively, i wonder if you would find it easier if you pushed the youngest's bedtime back a bit? At 3months, they can still be napping until later in the day and that would mean they are able to stay awake past your eldest's bedtime. If you could get a nap in until 6pm ish, then you might be able to get your eldest bedtime done in the youngest's wake window and then do bedtime for the youngest around 8pm? Then you'd also be able to keep them sleeping in the same room as you until 6months.

I was a single mum to a 4 year old and newborn twins. So I always did it on my own (which in some ways is easier because I could set a strict routine).
Make sure everything you need is out and ready. All bath together. Pjs on. Dc1 chose a book while I was emptying bath etc. Then I'd feed twins while reading book. Dc 1 would then sit and do a quiet jigsaw or similar alone while I put twins to bed then we'd read a book or finish the jigsaw before dc1 brushed teeth/toilet and then bed.
I think the set routine (teaching dt to fall asleep/never rock, feed or cuddle them to sleep) was a necessity for me but I could guarantee all 3 would be in bed by 730 every night.
So I'd say routine was my way of coping.

I don’t really have an answer, but just sending sympathy because it truly is one of the hardest bits.

I can’t remember how I do it did it now mine are both teens but I do remember the pain You will come out the other side all the best!

I put them to bed at the same time when my DD was that little. We learnt from early on that putting DS and DD to bed the same time helped with the nights I had to do it on my own.
We'd do bath then get into our bed to ready stories. It meant I could feed DD while reading to DS. DS wouldn't fall asleep too early as we would read or just chat in our bed with DD was sleeping either on me or in the bedside cot.

This is me currently, 2YO feral toddler and 8 week old velcro baby. It is hell at the moment and I'm completely winging it to be honest. I'm on my own with them pretty much 24/7 except for weekends. I don't know how we're all still alive 🥴 either my toddler is unsupervised and trashing the house/not listening to me, or I have to leave my baby to scream/cry. This is definitely what hell consists of, I know it. I've been baby wearing as a survival tactic but my OH took the carrier in the car to work and I don't have another 😭

Put the older child down first. The baby can be in a sling or in a bouncer, then read your older child a story, goodnight, lights out, then bottle for baby and cot.

Older child to bed first, baby can always nap more in the day to make up for it but a tired toddler is the worst kind of toddler! I used to breastfeed baby whilst reading story to my older two, then when they were asleep put the baby down. I actually found it easier on my own than with dh when they were little but it does take a while to find a routine that works for you. Good luck!!

You need to put the older one to bed first. Keep the baby with you so it isn't crying in another room. Once the older one is down, you can sort the baby (presumably you're taking the baby back downstairs with you anyway).

I had a smaller age gap so had a 3 month old and just turned 2 year old. Never tried to put the baby down first. At 3 months she was still with us for all sleep so I would have both of them bathed and in pyjamas then be feeding the baby while reading to the toddler and staying with him till he went to sleep. Then taking baby back to lounge with me and either feeding again or putting her down in the carrycot there before my bedtime.

We also did put the older one down first when the baby was little (slightly smaller age gap, and admittedly we didn't have solo bedtimes till baby was maybe 7 months). So we did: baby plays on bathroom floor while big one has bath, then story time for older child, while holding/feeding baby, then say goodnight to older child and go and put baby in cot.

When the baby got bigger and more mobile, we switched to: older child bath while younger child plays in bathroom. Then younger child bath, story and bed while older child has the choice to stay and play in the bathroom, or go off and play quietly somewhere else, then older child story and bedtime. Admittedly this only works because the little one is a champion at going to sleep quickly, so the older one is not having to wait long and stay up too late.

Thanks so much everyone for all your messages and for your ideas! Some of you sound like absolute heroes! And also glad to hear it's not just me!

We were putting the baby down later and having the baby with us while we put older one to bed, but the baby now refuses to nap later in the evening unless we go for like a half hour walk which is obviously not possible if you're flying solo! So we have to put baby down first otherwise he is super overtired and very sad. I'm sure we will find our way through!!

I went to bed when they did . We all co slept , l bought a huge bed for the four of us . Not ideal but we all slept . They just want to be with us bless them .

If you can’t put both down together, can you push the little one’s bed earlier and give the other some TV during that?

I used to put both down together on a mattress on the floor with me in the middle. Then sneak out with baby if I was still awake. Sometimes it all went to hell if baby would ‘t sleep or nurse or play quietly while the toddler fell asleep.

When my children were young my husband worked away during the week.
I had all 3 in one bedroom ( well baby in cot my room until about 8 months) stayed like this until oldest about 9 or 10 and wanted her own room.
It did seem to make things easier if any one of them was acting up I'd stay in room while.
Also made things easier having just one room to tidy up too
Good luck

This to a tee!

Dh worked shifts when dc were little so I did this a lot. I Will say though that I’ve never been one for strict sleeping schedules etc.

put eldest to bed first whilst you cuddle wee one. If they fall asleep too then so be it. Read to them both together.

if eldest isn’t settling tell them they must stay in bed and listen to music or whatever whilst you get the baby to bed. Be really strict that they cannot leave their room.

naps - never mastered this tbh. Youngest used to sleep on me when we were home but it helped that she slept through noise and also that she didn’t have many naps. If we were out thankfully she slept in pram.

I used to bath them both together. Take all of the baby’s stuff into the bathroom and older one could carry on his bath while the baby was dried and dressed. Baby then had a few minutes on the playmat while toddler got dried and into pj’s and brushed their teeth.
I’d then bf baby while reading to the toddler and they’d both go to bed at the same time.
I ended up doing gradual retreat with both of them at different times so they were happy to self settle.
It’s tough. You can only do your best x

Solo mum to a now 6 month and 22 month old. Bath, bottle, story together then the eldest runs with me to put down the youngest and we go back and put him down. However, I have a routine for bed that is beyond strict. I invested loads of work from 4 weeks to 16 weeks in making sure my youngest could reliably go down at the exact same time - 7pm - as my eldest (and effectively did a weird mix of Ferber/CIO for falling to sleep at bedtime between 14-16 weeks). Lucky enough i could pay for support for that early period of time to be able to do it but knew I had to get the routine solid for them both as I needed to be able to do them both together. Before I'd got the routine sorted on the nights i didn't have help when it could still take 30-60 minutes to get the baby down, i would do what others have said and first put my eldest down (using bath/breast/bottle to keep the youngest as calm as possible - then go and settle the youngest). But getting a combined routine down from 4 months made a huge difference - i just felt so much more in control.