Babies: 9 - 12 Months

Tell me about your nighttime schedule (does baby go to bed late?)


(XP on May 2012)

DS goes to bed for the night at 8:30. (This is an improvement, it used to be 9 but we slowly moved him up.) I enjoy being able to spend a few hours with him after work, but it makes our nights really late.

Once I get him home from grandma-care, nurse him, play time, solid dinner time, bath time, pajama time (aka WWIII in our house), nurse again, then bed, there is NO time to make dinner for me and DH until after he is in bed. Which means we are usually sitting down to eat around 9:30, which is just too late. I don't know what to do to break the cycle! I'm curious what everyone else's nighttime routine looks like. Do you make quick easy dinners?

DH doesn't get home until about 7:30 and while I'm taking care of DS, he's usually doing other stuff that needs to get done (walk the dog, etc).



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Re: Tell me about your nighttime schedule (does baby go to bed late?)

  • Hm.  I'm not sure what to suggest, but you guys have to start sitting down and "attempting" to have a dinner together around 7? 

    Honestly if this were my situation, I would have dinner ready so when DH comes home at exactly 7:30 p.m. you eat dinner.  As far as "having dinner ready" well we order out a lot or do quick dinners.  I think a lot of moms here would advise you to use the crockpot, prepare meals on weekends, etc.  

    Anyway I get home at 6:00 p.m. from work and as soon I get home I start cleaning and doing stuff around the house (as best I can) and prepping for dinner.  My girls play in the living room, or hang out w/DH if he's home, or something.  Then we all sit down for dinner at 7:00 p.m.  Then we do bathtime and DD#2 goes upstairs w/me to nurse and go down for bed.  She goes down around 8-8:30 p.m.  After I put the baby down I come downstairs and bring the toddler up for bed.  She's in bed by 8:45/9:00 p.m.

    So, I'm not sure I have great suggestions, but IMO there's no good reason for you to be waiting until 9:30 p.m. to eat dinner.  You have to just sit down and eat earlier.  And again we do a lot of take out and leftovers from the weekend.  

    Good luck! 

  • I make dinner as soon as DH gets home so he gets to play with LO. She is eating mostly table foods now so eats dinner with us. Bath right after, then jammies, BM, bed.
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  • I get home from picking her up from daycare around 5:00.  I feed her a bottle around then.

    DH gets home at 5:40

    I feed her "dinner" of solids at 6

    (bath every other day or so after her dinner) 

    We eat our dinner at 6:30ish

    We dim lights and make everything calm

    I change her into her jammies, do a diaper change at 6:50ish

    Start her last bottle at 7

    Put her in her crib by 7:15 

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  • you are doing better than us, if "better" means "earlier".

    I work M-F  with occasional Saturday mornings, 9-5, which is more like 8:30-6 with pumping.So if I get home before 7 it's a miracle. LO is always taking a nap when I get home.

    Hubby works weekends plus Monday, 2-10. We have a babysitter on Monday from noon until I get home (usually by 6).

    Whoever is home first cooks dinner (usually hubby). We eat at 7ish. Eating in our family takes at least an hour.

    We start bedtime routine by 9, usually she is in bed before 10, some nights she doesn't really settle in until 11.

     She doesn't wake up until 9 or 10. Sometimes she wakes at 6 for a quick feed then off to bed. 

    This works for us since Hubby works late and so do I. If we tried the normal schedule (7-7 sleep), we'd never spend time as a family.

     It would be great if we could have jobs that were strict 9-5 but we don't, so meh. It's no big deal- baby is happy and thriving. There will be a time for 7am school days. We aren't there. We are here, when we have an opportunity to bond-we take it.

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  • DS goes to bed between 6:30 and 7 and is up for the day around 7:30.  DH doesn't usually get home from work until 6 at the earliest but if we try to keep DS up, he turns into a monster and wakes up for the day around 6am.  I try to have dinner ready at 6pm so that we can eat as soon as DH walks in the door because we like to all eat as a family (our 4-year old needs this routine). 
  • husband picks son up at 5pm

    they hang out, I get home at 530pm

    we play/chat with baby for a few min (sometimes quick bath time)

    545 we put baby in high chair and give him solids. then we start dinner together - or one will make dinner while entertaining baby (usually we just put lots of toys on his high chair)

    615 we put baby in walker while we eat, he entertains himself and chases the dog around (we eat pretty quickly though)

    after dinner we let him play until about 7pm and then we get him in his jammies, read a book, and lights out by 715 most nights

    ........He only gets a bath 2-3 times/week. it's not part of the bedtime routine

     

    TTC#2: 8/17/14 // BFP: 9/5/14
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    TTC#1: 7/30/11 // BFP: 8/22/11
    DS: Carson Robert 4/29/12
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  • This is a struggle for us as well. DH usually gets home around 6:30, and he likes to cook so DS will hang out in his high chair while DH cooks, this is part of their bonding/play time. While dinner is being cooked I will take care of some chores -- walking the dog, lugging things up/down stairs, sometimes I'll have a little me time and take a shower. We have dinner as a family around 7:30.

    Bedtime routine starts around 8:30 - 8:45. Bath, while DH takes dog out for a final evening walk, then nursing and when DH comes back from walk he reads baby a story. Then up to bed. Nurse a little more, have quiet boring playtime. Brush his one tooth that broke last weekend. Check diaper, sing lullabyes.  It is often 10:30 before DS falls asleep, often closer to 10:45. He might wake one final time around midnight and then will sleep through to 5:30 am. But tonight was not a good night, he didn't fall asleep until midnight.

  • I stay home with lo. Ds and I eat dinner at 5 pm. I also make a plate for dh and leave in microwave until he gets home ( usually  at 7pm). At 5:30ish we start lo bedtime routine, bath, pjs. I sometimes let him play quietly in his crib until 6pm. He gets nursed at 6 pm and sleep by 6:30. I hold him until 7pm then put in crib. When dh gets home he has dinner and I have dessert. It's our only "meal" together. Lo does not sttn so dh and I only have about 2 hrs of alone time until ds is up for a nursing. 

    Btw I cook on sundays for the week so it is less of a hassle during week nights. 

  • We get home usually between 5:30 and 6. I make a quick dinner for us both (we play while it's cooking), then we eat together. I don't make her a separate meal for her though so that helps, she just eats what I eat.Then we play a little more, bath time at around 7:30, story and then bed.

    DH doesn't get home until 9:30 though so I usually don't cook for him at all.

    One thing you could do is cook ahead of time so that meals are easy to just heat up in the evenings. Like tonight she will have salsa chicken again because I baked a couple breasts last night for leftovers and then I'll just steam a different veggie for her.

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  • We still aren't eating dinner as a family. I get home between 5:30 and 6 and right away usually let the dog out and start dinner for my son. DH gets home around 6 - 6:30 and by then I am playing with DS or giving him his bath and then heating his bottle at 7:10 to be in bed by 7:30. So we don't eat our dinners until 8 usually.

    Married: 5/09 ~ TTC Since: 10/10 ~ PCOS ~ Progesterone from 10/10 - 2/11 ~ HSG on 3/18 - Clear ~ Started Metformin 1000mg & Clomid 50mg 2/11 ~ Metformin upped to 1500mg 4/6 ~ 6/7 Now going to SG and put on Clomid, Ovidrel, Gonal F, Prometrium, Estrace ~ IUI #1 7/2 = BFP!!!!!! March 6th our little man was born. 

    6/17/13 - Ovidrel, Follistim, Prometrium ~ IUI #1 7/2 = BFP! March 17th our St. Pattys day baby arrived

    10/29/17 - Started process for IVF, got pregnant & miscarried a 2nd time since summer. 2/22 started stims - Menopur, Gonal F, Cetrotide - retrieval 3/6 - , PIO, estrace 3xday - FET 4/18 = Beta 1: 616; Beta 2: 1342 = BFP 

  • What time do you wake him up?  If he wakes up later (like 8am) I would not worry about moving up his bed time.  DS2 goes down between 7:30pm and 8:30pm depending on if it is a bath night. I get him up at 6am.  He falls back asleep for a few hours at DC before breakfast.

    If I were you, I would work on eating dinner as a family, as hard as it is.  Like PP said, work out some easy dinners or make them ahead so they are ready by 7:30 when DH gets home.  Have dinner first, then put the baby to bed.  He should be able to amuse himself by now with some toys, and you could just have him play on the kitchen floor (away from the stove of course) while you cook/heat up dinner.  You still get some play time in that way.  It's really hard to start, but it's better than eating late. I used to get home at 6:30, so trust me, I understand.  That family time is important, so get it while you can!  DH can walk the dog, etc while you put the baby down for the night.

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