bedtime help!
Ok, so I'm totally eating my words here. I've posted in the past in response to other people's bedtime woes but now I'm in a pickle and want some advice.
I currently have a 2 year old and a 4 month old. My two year old is a terrible sleeper in general and has been his whole life. He's very high maintenance when it comes to sleep. My 4 month old sleeps like a dream. She's been STTN since like 2 weeks and has been known to go to sleep "drowsy but awake", which my son has never done.
I used to put on TV for my son and rock my daughter to sleep while I made dinner. She went down at 7:30 and he doesn't go to sleep until 9. It was working great. However, lately she hasn't been tired at 7:30 and is not going to sleep until 8:30 or 9. Doing bedtime one at a time was great but I can't keep doing it if she's not going to fall asleep until 8:30. So I think I'm going to have to switch up the routine and try to multi-task bedtime so that they can both get to bed at a reasonable hour. Any advice on a bedtime routine that would work with both kiddos?
PS - My husband works 2nd shift so he's not home at bedtime 6 nights/week (the 6th night is technically for the company softball team and he could be home by mid-bedtime but that would probably mess things up, so he goes out with friends afterwards)
Re: bedtime help!
I'd love to hear what everyone else does.
My husband's currently deployed and even when he's home, he's got wacky hours, so I do bedtime alone a lot. Sometimes the kids go to bed at the same time, but usually DD1 goes down an hour later than DD2. For a night that they both go down at the same time, here's our routine:
After dinner, the girls play and we read some books. Then we go upstairs and I get them in their pjs, wash faces, and brush teeth. While I'm getting one child ready, the other is running around upstairs like a crazy person. They get baths every other to every third day. They share a room and I put DD1 in bed first. Then, I pick DD2 up and let her rest her head on my shoulder for about ten seconds before I put her in her crib.
You could try putting the baby in a bouncer, while you get your son ready for bed. Maybe he could read some books or do a quiet activity in his room, while you are getting the baby ready for bed? You could also have him help you by getting her a diaper, pjs, etc or maybe try reading to him, while getting her dressed.
My kids have always been pretty good about falling asleep, but they are both craptastic sleepers, so I feel your pain there.
I am in the same situation as you. DD1 is an awfull sleeper and at 2 still needs to be cuddled to bed some nights. DD2 is a great sleeper.
Here's what I do most nights when DH is not at home during bed time. 6:30 DD2 goes into bath. DD1 helps. I nurse DD2 to sleep on the couch while DD1 reads or watches a program. 7:30 DD1 starts bedtime routine and is in bed by 8:00ish
Now some night DD2 will not cooperate- on these nights I still stick with the routine but have DD2 sit in a bouncer while DD1 showers and then I put DD2 on the living room floor while I put DD2 down to bed. Every so often the baby will start crying while I am trying to put her sister down and vise versa so I am back and forth for sometimes an hour before I finally get them down- but for the most part it's not so bad.
If possible I would try to rearrange the nap times for your 4 month old so that she is ready for bed before your toddler. If my baby is still asleep at 3:30 I wake her up so that she is ready to start her bedtime routine at 6:30. It is so much easier to put them to bed when they aren't tired at the same time!