How do you handle bed-time?

At our house, we try to give baby girl her nightly bath around 7:30 pm, though some nights it’s closer to 8 pm. The general goal is for the bed-time routine to be over and her to be asleep by 8:30 pm.

Most nights, my husband gives baby girl her bath while I grab her jammies, milk and do some general tidying up from dinner, etc.

I’ll then come in as the bath ends, and we both stay in the room for story time and then while she falls asleep.

So my question is this:

If you have a two parent household, do both of you work on the bed-time routine?

Or does only one of you do it each night, possibly alternating nights throughout the week?

I know we have to work on getting her to fall asleep on her own, where we leave the room after we’ve read a story or two, but for now this works for us. Except that sometimes, I’m sure one of us could be doing other things while the other is doing the bed-time routine. There have been times that my husband has been able to leave the room while I read her a story and put her to sleep, but I’ve never tried it the other way around.

I wonder how it would go? Maybe it’s more of my own attachment than hers.

I look forward to reading your comments and all about your family’s nightly bed-time routines.

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Tagged as: bed time, bed-time routine, Parenting, toddlers

Modern Mami

Linda, I cannot even begin to imagine how you put 4 kids to bed in 40 minutes, but kudos to you!

Linda

If we're both home, we split the duties. He lotions dry skin, I supervise pajama putting-on, he gets toothbrushes ready, and we each read to a kid or two.

If I'm home alone, I have a well-oiled machine for getting four kids into bed between 7 and 7:40 p.m.

When he's home alone with them, I have no idea what happens, but I trust that they're well-cared for, and are usually asleep when I get home. Usually.

Modern Mami

Thanks for sharing your experience Lisa. I think moms just naturally are the nurturers, but my husband takes part every night and does a great job!

Lisa

My kids are all grown. But boy, I went through some sleep issues with my first. After reading this, I got to thinking. My ex never did help with getting our little ones to bed. Why? I couldn't tell you. But it seemed to fall to me. For all you young mommies, make hubby take part in bedtime. I think alternating is a great idea.

Modern Mami

Sounds like although difficult, you've got a handle on things! :)

skin care

Daniel was quite different than Jb and Jb...oh my God! this little ten month old dude put us in the hell of his cries and shouts, we always worried about his felling from bed and coming out of his cart. don't know how to manage his living and feeding alone while my husband do web promotion business and all the time busy with webmasters and burden to me to care children by all terns and by all means.

I appreciate people who look after kids by their terns and awake with them to support life partner when kids are quite young.
routine b4 bed is to go for mouth wash and collecting all clothes to put in washing room then feeding Jb and meanwhile Daniel go asleep and I sleep with Jb, my husband joins me late night and we feel comfortable while children gone in deep asleep.

Little difficult but managing and pray to God to keep us fit and healthy because this is a only point where I feel my hopes and powers step back.

acupuncture

Modern Mami

I feel you Jai. She's still sleeping in our bed too. :-P

Jai

I actually was doing it all myself with him occassionally helping until I made him a chore list. Now I've got Tues and Thurs "off" which means he gives him the bath and puts him to bed. We like to have him in bed around 8pm. So we start the routine around 7ish close to 7:30. We clean up his toys and sing the clean up song, we take a bath we get a cup of milk and that's it. But of course if you're reading my blog you'd know he's still sleeping in our bed. ugh.

Modern Mami

Oh wow, Sandie. Yea, I'm tired too. lol

Sandie Law

When MonkeyBoy was younger, we took turns. Now we just kinda play it by ear. The general routine is brushing teeth, getting jammies on, reading a story, saying the special words*, and leaving. Lately, he's been getting up a lot, but we just got back from a vacation where he was up until 12-1am every night.

*Here are the special words:

Parent: "Goodnight"
MonkeyBoy: "Goodnight"
MonkeyBoy's stuffed animal(s) of the moment: "Goodnight"
Parent: "Sleep Tight"
MonkeyBoy: "Sleep Tight Too"
Parent: "Sweet Dreams"
MonkeyBoy: "Sweet Dreams Too"
Parent: "See you in the morning"
MonkeyBoy: "See you in the morning too!"
Parent: "I love you"
MonkeyBoy: "I love you too"
MonkeyBoy's stuffed animal(s) of the moment: "I love you too"
Parent: "Bye!"
MonkeyBoy: "Bye!"
MokeyBoy's stuffed animal(s) of the moment: "Bye!"

Whew...I'm tired already.

Modern Mami

Well that really sucks, Britt. But, I suppose on the up-side you get all the cuddling and such.

Miss Britt

We both work - but I am the primary care giver. For whatever reason.

Him being part of the bed time routine is optional - a nice supplement from time to time.

Me? Well, I AM the routine. :-)