Bedtime with a baby and a toddler – where to start? Bringing a new baby home is a glorious, exciting, terrifying time. Especially when you have one or two already, and it can bring up a whole lot of questions.
How are the older children going to react to their new sibling?
Are they going to embrace the role of older brother or sister?
How will their schedule fit in with your newborn’s naps and feeding times?
And maybe most concerning for anyone who’s clawed and scraped to get their little one sleeping through the night, how is this going to affect the older child’s bedtime?
Bedtime with a baby and a toddler
Trying to juggle two or three different bedtime routines can be absolutely mind-boggling if you’re not prepared for it. Trying to find fifteen minutes to feed your newborn at the same time that you’re trying to get your toddler out of the bath can drive you out of your mind. And toddlers…they know, they just know that you’re in a position where you’re unable to chase them down. So they have a real tendency to exploit that weakness.
So today, I have some tips for all of you who have many balls in the air, kid-wise, and are looking for a calmer bedtime with a baby and a toddler.
1. Have one bedtime for all the kids in the house
A lot of parents I work with are surprised when I suggest 7pm bedtime for their 3 year old. Even at that age, children still need between 10-12 hours of sleep a night. That’s not including daytime naps. So if your toddler needs to be up at 7am, a 7pm bedtime is not at all unreasonable. If the idea of running through two or three bedtime routines simultaneously seems daunting, keep reading.
2. Team up and switch off, if you can
If you have a partner who’s home to help get the kids to bed, put together a list of tasks. Split them evenly, and then switch every other night. That will prevent either of you from feeling like you’ve got the short end of the stick. It also gets your kids accustomed to either parent putting them to bed, so if one of you isn’t available on a given night, it won’t throw your little ones into a tailspin just because things are a little different.
3. Find opportunities to multitask
We’re all parents here, right? So either through talent or necessity, we’re the undisputed heavyweight champs of multitasking. Running through two or three completely separate bedtime routines is going to leave you exhausted, so double up. Bath them together, feed your newborn while you read your toddler a bedtime story, and so on. Wherever you can overlap, milk that opportunity for all it’s worth.
4. Create a 30 minute bedtime routine
Bedtime routines are absolutely vital to getting your kids sleeping through the night. It’s not just a great way of keeping them on a clock, although that’s a huge benefit, but it also serves as a signal to their brains and bodies that bedtime is approaching which stimulates melatonin production and dials things down internally to prepare for a long, rejuvenating night’s sleep. A bath is a great place to start since it’s so noticeably different from everything else kids do during the day. It’s a strong signal that sleep is just around the corner.
5. Save a special activity for bedtime
Typically it will be the older child who’s capable of entertaining themselves for a little while as you’re busy finishing up with your youngest. It’s not always the case, but whichever way it breaks in your house, come up with an non-screen-related activity that will keep your toddler entertained and quiet, and make it exclusive to that fifteen minutes or so that you need one-on-one time to put the baby down. Don’t make it too stimulating or open-ended or you could end up in a skirmish because your child’s bedtime activity is too much fun to put down. A special coloring book is a great option.
6. Give your toddler a job
Toddlers love structure and predictability, so giving them a helper position when you’re putting your younger child to bed is a great way to keep them occupied and give them a feeling of accomplishment just before they head to bed. Show them where the nappies are stored and have them bring you the goods as you’re getting your baby for bedtime.
7. Stick to your guns
Toddlers test boundaries in a constant, systematic fashion. “I’m not allowed to throw the football in the house? OK. Let’s see if I’m allowed to throw the tennis ball in the house!” And now that you’re splitting your attention between them and a new baby, you might feel a little indebted to them. That’s totally natural, but changing or bending the rules is likely to upset them more, not less. As I mentioned previously, kids thrive on predictability and structure. If they suddenly get the feeling like the fences are down, they typically feel a little lost and that’s going to lead to more tantrums, not fewer. So keep the routine and the expectations as close as possible to the way they were before their sibling arrived.
8. Scrap screen time
I know how quickly and effectively putting your child in front of the TV or handing them your phone can buy you a few minutes of peace and quiet, but screens are the ultimate swindler. Because the entire time that they’re holding your child’s attention, they’re flooding their eyes with blue light. That might not seem like a bad trade off for fifteen minutes of time to tend to your baby, but blue light stimulates cortisol production and inhibits melatonin, so those fifteen minutes of peace and quiet could very easily cost you hours of trying to get your overtired child to settle down for the night.
9. Accept the fact that bedtime with a baby and a toddler won’t always go smoothly
These are, after all, young children we’re dealing with, so if things start to go off the rails a bit, don’t look at it as a failure on anyone’s part. They’re going to have regressions, tough nights, and the occasional meltdown, but staying calm and level-headed is the best thing you can do to avoid escalating those situations into something more frustrating and upsetting for everyone involved.
10. Embrace the peace and quiet
Once you’ve got everyone in bed, take at least five or ten minutes before you check your email, start a load of laundry, or catch up on whatever responsibilities you’ve got to tend to, and just let yourself unwind. I don’t need to tell you that this parenting thing is a stressful gig, so when you get a moment to pat yourself on the back and find a little zen in your life, you should fall face-first into it, and the moments right after the kids fall asleep are a prime opportunity to do just that. So celebrate the superhero that is you. There’s another night of challenges and rewards for the whole family coming up again tomorrow.
If you’re looking for some support with your little ones and their sleep, my Slumber School Programme can help you! Or you can find out more about working with me 1 to 1.
bedtime with a baby and a toddler