Bedtime: If you lay down your toddler AFTER your infant, come in...

julieb00lie

This mostly applies to moms who do dinner/bath/bedtime for both kids by yourself. What does your toddler do while you nurse/soothe your infant to sleep? And how long does that process take for you?

thefarmchick

My normal routine is to put the DS down first but some nights DD needs to go to bed early.  I still do our normal routine. Dinner, play, bath, bed but instead of putting DS in bed I let him lay down on his little couch and watch Word World.

This only works at our house because Word World is like crack and he settles right down and becomes mesmerized for 25 minutes~about 3 minutes longer than it takes for me to get DD to bed, lol.

I just remembered:
When DD was first born DS was still rocked to sleep and I was a hot mess trying to rock him to sleep and cluster feed DD at the same time.  I would do bath time and let DS play/watch Thomas the Tank Engine(This was his crack like show back then) I would nurse her, the put her in her carseat(where she slept at that time due to reflux) and I would put her on the dryer and turn it on while I got DS to bed.  Sometimes she would wake up and have to fuss a bit. Other times she wouldn't go to sleep and I would be nursing her while rocking DS and praying one of them would give in before the other had a meltdown.

Life is MUCH easier now!

marielovestimothy03

I know this is opposite of what you're asking but this routine worked SO well for us I thought I'd share.

DH worked nights when #2 was first born so I did bedtime routine alone a lot. After dinner I put #2 in the bouncy seat in the bathroom while I gave #1 a bath. I'd get #1 in a new diaper and PJs in the bathroom right after. Then I'd take them both to #1's room and hold #2 while I did story, song & prayer for #1 and put them to bed first. THEN I'd take #2 back out to the living room, nurse them and rock them to sleep and lay them down in the PnP in our room (or in the swing when they were super little and up nursing frequently - I just slept out on the couch then). It was a LOT easier to put my oldest to bed before my youngest. If my youngest ever got fussy while I was putting my oldest to bed I'd either pop them on the boob or offer a paci.

Now they go to bed at the same time and have been for awhile. 

mrsseguin

We do bath if it's a bath night.  We do bathe both kids together.  DD gets a bottle and gets put down in her crib.  She is never asleep when we lay her down, she puts herself to sleep.  We only go in if she cries which she rarely does.

We usually set DS up with a tv show and a snack.  Sometimes he will be in her room when she's having her bottle, but we try to keep him out.  The whole process takes about 10 minutes.  I think we have the kids in a pretty good routine.  DD goes to bed at 7pm, DS at 8pm.

12bailey18

I did this in the beginning. But now, DD takes a catnap in the pack n' play downstairs while I put DS to bed. This is after dinner and baths where all I have to do is just say goodnight and lay him down. In the beginning DS would "play" on the bed with us in my room as I gave DD her last bottle and rocked her to sleep. I would then go put DS to bed. That whole process took 30-45 minutes. DS never really gets to play on my bed so he always thought it was fun. Now, DD has been taking a little nap downstairs, which is a perfect time to go put DS down. Usually all I have to do is just put her in the bassinet from the pack n' play so it's pretty easy.

AlliJKatz

Elmo - thank g-d for Elmo!  DS gets to watch Elmo with his milk on the couch while I am in DD's room nursing her and putting her to bed.  It's about 20 minutes.  Then when she's down, I do a few things around the house while DS finishes Elmo, then we do teeth brushing, books and bed. 

Bath time can be a mess and I can't wait for them to be able to bathe together, but a lot of time while I bathe DS, DD is on the floor screaming and crying.  While I bathe DD, DS is usually running around the house like a mad man although I do try to have him bring his cars or trains into the hallway and play where I can keep my eye on him.

bulldog_mama23

On the nights that DH is at the gym, I put both kids to sleep three nights a week. Usually,  I read stories to both kiddos (since DD likes to be included on his storytime) and then I tell her that little brother is going to go night-night.  I will turn on the goodnight show for her on Sprout so she can watch it.   She does fairly good with staying in the living room while I put DS to sleep. Once he is down, we go in her room and read her favorite bedtime stories before going to bed. There are nights that DD won't stay out of his room but for the most part, it has gone fairly smooth the last few months. 

ETA: The whole process probably takes less than 15 minutes. Forgot to add that, both kids are in bed by 7:45pm.