How do you manage bedtime with a toddler and a newborn?

[BabyHaribo]

DD is 1 week old . Feeding all the time it feels like and obviously no pattern to the feeds.

At the moment DH is home but next week once he goes back to work how on earth do I manage bath/bedtime routine with DS 2.5 Whilst DD needs feeding so frequently!

It's really scaring me any advice please?

[Fairywhitebear]

Erm...so far am still winging it!

My toddler is only 18 months so younger than yours. Newborn is now 9 weeks old.

I basically have cut down toddler's wind down to just half an hour. I take baby to the bathroom with me and leave outside in his rocker. I don't even contemplate trying to put him down until I've dealt with toddler!

When baby cries, I whack a dummy in!

Lots of breathing in, breathing out, try to ignore the noise

[Littlef00t]

I've heard you can get slings you can bf in, which might not work at 1 week old but soonish??

[Jinty64]

Ds1 was 23 months when ds2 was born. I used to have a changing bag, packed with everything I needed for bedtime, into which I would drop ds1's bottle. I took this into the bathroom with me. I bathed them both together from the word go. I used to take ds2 out of the bath and dry, change and feed him whist watching ds1 splash about and play with his bath toys then get ds1 out and take them both through onto my bed to get ds1 changed. We all stayed on my bed whilst ds1 had his bottle and I read to them. Ds2 often fed again. I did ds1's teeth leaving ds2 on my bed (or in his moses basket once i was scared he would roll) and put ds 1 in his cot.

Until ds2 was about 10 weeks I took him back downstairs with me and put him in his pram so that I could get dinner ready. Once he was older he had a bottle before bed and I put him down for the night in his cot in our room before I took ds1 to do his teeth.

Ds3 is 8 and I still get his pyjamas on and do his story on my bed. Old habits die hard!

[Jinty64]

I should say there were times when dh was away or not coming home until late that l put my pj's on too and didn't go back downstairs!

[Diryan]

I do baby into bath whilst toddler sits in the bathroom & watches videos on my phone. Then baby out bath, put toddler in & feed the baby in the bathroom whilst toddler plays with bath toys. Then dump baby unceremoniously on the bathroom floor (on a mat, I'm not totally heartless!), put toddler into bed, get the baby & feed them a bit more til asleep then put in bed. Baby used to cry whilst abandoned on the floor for 5 mins, but he's 15 weeks now & lays there happily.

[blushingmare]

11weeks in here.... When baby was really little I fed him whilst 2 year old was in the bath, then put him in the stretchy wrap sling for the rest of her bedtime and in fact, he stayed asleep in it whilst I got our dinner ready too, which was great. Around 4 weeks I started putting him in the bath with DD, then into the sling. Then around 8 weeks he started going down in his cot for the evenings, so now I do their baths together and get them both ready (give DD lots of jobs, like putting his nappy in the bin, choosing his PJs etc) and then feed him on my bed whilst reading stories to DD. Then put him in bed to settle and do DD's bedtime. Sometimes it works well and he settles down on his own and other times it's a bit fraught and he's fussing with his feeding, DD's getting impatient and I end up running backwards and forwards between their rooms! It's not perfect, but we're muddling on by

[drspouse]

Toddler goes to bed at 7 ish, with more or less our full attention (both of us, or one while the other clears up dinner). Baby hopefully has a feed during dinner or before or well after, and then naps on sofa/in living room/in sling during the evening. She seems to be doing evening cluster feeding with formula, which I wasn't aware was possible, but it means she doesn't go to bed when he does. She gets a bath every 2-3 days around 9, then we cross our fingers she's stopped being noisy by the time we go to bed.

[Lally112]

I always did toddler first and baby after toddler in bed, I made games for DS1 and DD1 in the bath when I was pregnant so they can basically wash themselves and all I had to do was rinse the shampoo put their hair and hand them a towel, off to bedroom, get dry PJs already laid out for putting on, one story, maybe two if I had time then lights out.