How do your bed time routines work with two young kids?

Question

I have a 14 month old and just found out I’m 6 weeks pregnant with our second! 
I’m a bit nervous about bed time routines and infants...welll...don’t exactly have routines. 
My 14 month old goes to bed at 7 every night. But we start bed time routine at 6. Bath, Bottle, Bed. But he cuddles on me and sometimes falls asleep on me before he goes down in the crib. 
So I’m worried how I’m going to manage keeping the same routine with an infant. 
Some days my husband is home and he can def help me during those times...but the days he not here, I’m really worried!!

Answer

Establish a concrete routine with your oldest. Then when the newborn comes they sort of work around that. 
Also, you’ve got almost 9 months to do it. Your oldest will be more mature and probably need less to go to sleep by then, too. Set up a routine now that you know will be easy to incorporate a newborn in to. 
For me, when I had my second I would put my oldest to bed first if possible then the newborn (they generally take longer because I breastfeed to sleep). 
When my third comes I’ll have a 6.5 y/o and 2 y/o. Our routine is bath, milk, cuddles together then bed for 2 year then 6.5 year an hour later. I know I can put my older kids in my bed with a milk and a show and nurse the newborn while we all cuddle. It takes me all of 2 minutes to put each to bed. I make sure their rooms are prepped right after bath time (lights off, fans on, etc). Then it’s sing their song, tuck them in and say good night. I can technically do that while holding/nursing an infant if I need to or pop her in the bassinet. 
My husband is often traveling or working late, so I keep a pretty tight schedule so no one has break downs. 
I do what I call the 5-6-7-8. Dinner at 5, baths by 6, first to bed at 7, last at 8.

Answer

I would definitely get your toddler used to falling asleep in bed now vs on you so that when the baby comes his routine will not be disrupted. When the baby does come though the first few weeks you are right there wont be much routine but after that just get baby on the same routine as your toddler. If you are home alone you may have to stagger their routines a little but your toddler is going to be a lot bigger and need a slightly different routine anyways (probably wont be on a bottle before bed and such) you'll come up with what works for your kids. I'm a little nervous about doing bed time when my third baby comes but i know we'll make it work

How do your bed time routines work with two young kids?

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