How do y’all get your kid/toddler to bed without fighting you ?

Question

Y’all, I can’t do this anymore! I mention to my husband that we need to get a bunk bed for our 5 and 2 year old boys. Right now my husband sleeps with my 5 year old and I sleep with my 2 and 1 year old. 
I keep telling him we need to train them to sleep without us. It’s like he doesn’t want to give it up but I want my husband back. Also, I’m so tired of waking up in the middle of the night to my 2 year old whining for the ‘baba’ and that wakes my 1 year old cry for the boob. 
It’s exhausting. If I don’t lay in there for countless hours because they don’t go to sleep without me, I can’t get anything done. It seems like I can’t get anything done anyways. It also seems like my husband isn’t on board. 
I would love to clean the house when they are being put to bed, relax and simply have me and my husband time but it’s not gonna work out. 
I put my 5 and 2 year old to bed 2 hours ago and they are still up whining because they want me 😭 
I wake up with them and we go to bed together. There’s no time in the middle where I can just catch a break

Answer

You should cut them off cold turkey. It’ll probably be rough for a few nights, but your mental health and marriage is suffering.

Answer

be firm lights out no talking no jumping in bed, give them warm milk before bed establish a night routine for them. they need to feel comfortable in their own beds eventually they will get used to getting to bed but don't cave in when they cry

Answer

I sit in their room until they fall asleep.

Answer

We never slept with our children. They've always been in their cribs. Our oldest we did gentle sleep training and it worked wonders for her. She's 2 and all we have to do is turn the sound machine on, the light out, hold her for a minute, then put her in her bed and walk away. Our youngest turns 1 in a couple of weeks and we do the same thing, but sway with her for 2-3 minutes until she's asleep, then we put her in bed and walk away. We were always very intentional on creating good sleep habits, a short rountine, and never sleeping with them. I out in a lot of hard work the first few months to set myself up for success. They both sleep 10-13 hours a night. I highly recommend @the.peaceful.sleeper on Instagram. I modified her methods to be gentle and it worked wonders for us.

Answer

usually i let him snuggle with me and my husband and when he’s mostly asleep he greets carried to his room

Answer

An easier transition can be to put the bunk bed and a crib in your room  so your kids still feel safe with you but learn to sleep in their own beds. You can all fall asleep together and then sneak out when they are asleep deeply. Definitely recommend a white noise machine too so they can’t hear you sneak out. Once they’ve gotten used to sleeping in their own beds you can move them to their room and you can sit in a chair in their room till they fall asleep and then after they get used to that just put them down, turn on the sound machine and walk out. I highly recommend a bedtime routine if you don’t have one. I know this seems like a lot and it honestly really is but your kids have established safe sleep with you and it’ll take some hard work and time to shift their perspective on sleeping alone but you can do it. This is the gentlest way to transition. Or cut them cold turkey! Put them in their beds in their own room and let them all figure it out together. They can all sleep together! Just know you aren’t alone, I still struggle with my two year old but I’ve been following this Plan and it’s working really well. You can do this

Answer

Our bed time routine has been the same since leaving the hospital. Bath with sleepy time bubbles, lotion, pajamas milk/bottle and a short story. I rocked to sleep until she 2.5 when he asked if he could just go to his bed after the story and I said sure ( I wasn’t ready to let go tbh 😢 but I followed his lead. He’s turning 4 now and he still has the same routine. He might talk to himself or roll around for about 15 minutes but he always goes to bed on his own and doesn’t get up out of the bed at all not even when he wakes up at night. He does still wake up with bad dreams every now and then. We just tuck him back in and he’s back off to sleep.

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Rituals always worked well for us. They were allowed to choose books I would read to them or my husband would tell them a story. Quite often they would fall asleep before the story even finished.

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Well we bed share still with our 3.5 year old. She goes to sleep pretty well now but there was a time where it took hours to get her to sleep AND I extended breast fed until after 2 so she still woke up for milk for a while. When I stopped lactating we had to try melatonin to help her get to sleep because she would flop around in bed for hours and I couldn't do anything but lay there with her. I couldn't get anything clean or spend time with my husband because if we got out of bed before she was fully asleep she'd just jump up out of bed. After she got into a good routine of going to sleep and staying asleep we slowly cut back on the melatonin and now she doesn't have any at night and just goes right to sleep. We get out of bed after she's asleep to spend time together, clean up, watch TV then we go back to bed to sleep ourselves later on. It took us a while to get to this point but the melatonin REALLY helped get her to sleep when we struggled so much and then she was able to start falling asleep on her own without it. We personally aren't ready to move her to her own bed yet because her room is on the opposite end of our house and it seems so far but when we do we will both be on board. 
I definitely think with multiple kids it would be best to go ahead and get them sleeping in their own beds now. I also highly recommend a melatonin gummy to get this routine down. We used hello bello brand. You may want to keep your youngest both you until they are done nursing but once you're both ready to wean it would probably be best in your situation to have them in their own bed too. 
I think you really need to lay it all out for your husband and try to get him to understand how much you're struggling and tell him you just absolutely can't do it this way anymore and if you have to get a bed yourself, set it up, and just put your foot down and start a new routine. 
Good luck Mama! We all struggle with bed time at some point but it doesn't have to last forever.

Answer

I voted “it’s easy,” but I could never take all the credit, with integrity.  I do put in effort and we do manipulate things every so often when it’s needed, but mostly I think we just kinda lucked out with both kids😑

How do y’all get your kid/toddler to bed without fighting you ?

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