Moms of 2 or more -- bedtime routines?

[C99]

How do you handle bedtime routines? If I put Rose to sleep before Nate, he often wakes her up as he expends all of his energy before bed. If I put Nate to sleep before Rose, I've missed her tiredness window. And anything before that is dinner and getting ready for dinner. Nate goes to bed at 8. We eat dinner as a family at 6.

[barbarhow]

It's really hard isn't it? Anna seems to stay up late-10:00p- which in some ways makes it easier and others more difficult. Some nights it is just me and it is so hard to get both of them bathed and to bed. Many a night I am nursing A while trying to read to Jack. Some nights she is crying while I try and put him down.
I obviously have no answers just wanted to commiserate.
The nights when Tom is home are so much easier. One of us bathes Jack, the other gets kitchen duty and then he usually reads and puts Jack down.
Barbara-mom to Jack 3/27/03, a Red Sox fan
and Anna 5/12/05, my little Yankee fan!

[Karenn]

Well, when DH is home, I do Claire & he does Colin. When he's not home, it's hard. It's actually gotten much, much better now that Claire is older and not so bedtime sensitive. Usually I put her down first because of the tiredness window thing and then I do Colin. Amazingly, he has never woken her up.

I know you know that this is a hard age for sleep (for Rose) but I think having two only intensifies the 4-5 month old sleep issues! It was a hard time, especially bedtime.

[ykc]

A problem in my house too.

We eat at 6:00 too. The kids bathe at 7:00. Usually Annika gets a bath after Erik, but when she was too young to be left in the tub by herself and I wasn't home to help, they bathed together. She finishes bathing while Erik is put in his PJs and starts reading. If there is only one parent, she gets dressed and reads with Erik until it's time to put him down (btw 7:30-8:00). She goes downstairs while Erik gets his teeth brushed. Then, there is 15-30 minutes for reading with Annika. She goes to bed around 8:30. This summer, we actually pushed her bedtime back by 30 minutes just to stagger the bedtimes (told her it was the privilege of being older).

Our kids share a room, but I confess that the pack&play is still set up in the guest bedroom. We were worried about Annika waking Erik, and it did happen occasionally, though usually we could settle him down to sleep fairly easily, or we took him out of the room. Now, the bigger problem is Erik keeping Annika up. He can be quiet as a mouse, not a peep out of him, but as soon as she walks into the room to get into bed, he starts jabbering and won't stop. We often have to separate them just so that Annika can go to sleep. And when he doesn't have an audience, Erik goes to sleep pretty quickly too. I would give them their own rooms except that (a) the kids' room is obscenely large for one child, and (b) I really want to keep the guest bedroom. So the problem is of my own making.

I don't think that helps much, but that's what we do. I think, in the long run, it's easier to put the baby down first, but it really depends on your kids.

[kelly ann]

Caroline-

We are in the same boat, but now we seem to have a routine. However, DH is always at home at bedtime. We just divide and conquer - that seems to be our approach with a lot of things these days. I take DD since she has to be nursed and DH takes DS. If I have trouble getting DD to sleep after nursing, then we swap positions.

If you have to put both down by yourself, maybe you can move the bedtime up by 15 minutes for Nate. That way the window to put Rose down is less likely to pass you by.

There is no way I could put DD down first since DS would be singing and running around the house while trying to get DD asleep.

[McQ]

When DH is in town he gets Declan (milk, tooth brushing, pajamas, books) and I get Meghan. Both go down by 7:30 and we're done by 8pm.

When DH is out of town I still put Meghan down at 7:30 and I let Declan watch JoJo with his milk. Then we do tooth brushing, pajamas, books around 8pm.

Allison
~ mama to Declan and Meghan