Solo Bedtime With Multiple Children

- Laura Thompson | 25th February 2022 -

Before the pandemic I would regularly put both my children to bed solo whilst my husband was travelling for work. I have done it with a baby and toddler and as they have become older. I remember feeling pretty terrified the first time my husband went away after my youngest was born, I was out numbered and I had visions of chaos, tears and still being up late into the evening getting them both to bed. Now whilst I cannot tell you there were never tears, I can tell you that I was regularly pleasantly surprised by how smoothly the whole thing ran and I have certainly developed my own little ways when it comes to getting more than one child to bed so I’d like to share that with you today!

Be Prepared

I quickly learnt that attempting to put black out blinds up, run a bath and lay towels and PJs out right at bath time was a recipe for disaster! My children were either ratty and irritable by this point or hyper and did not play happily whilst I just got on with this. What I started doing instead was bringing them both upstairs at some point during the afternoon when they were calm and happy and I would get as much set up for bedtime as I could so that when it was time to come up I could focus all my attention on the children rather than trying to find things and get things ready.

Encourage Independence

When you only have one child you can very easily find yourself doing a lot for them and probably things they could do for themselves! Start encouraging age appropriate independence so that you are not attempting to dry and dress 2 or more children for bed when they could probably do this themselves. You can also get a little creative with this … with my children who are currently 3 and 5 years old we do a drying dance! I’ll paint the image, I stand and dance around showing them how to get dry and they both follow along getting dry. Boom, two kids dry in one … wouldn’t you love to be a fly on the wall!

Healthy Competition

If your children are older this can be a game changer! Who is going to get their PJs on first, who’s teeth are the sparkliest and so on. Sometimes just the competition element is enough, sometimes I go a little further (especially if bedtime have been tough recently or I know they are particularly fractious). Get your CBeebies presenter voice on and MAKE IT FUN! Recently I have had ‘magical stickers’ hiding in my pocket that I reward them for good listening and so on … there’s nothing there, it’s an imaginary sticker but act your socks off and make it exciting, my kids loved it! I fully appreciate this may be the former primary school teacher in me coming out but hey give it a try!

1:1 Time With Each Child

This can be so tricky when you are doing bedtime alone and it is going to look differently depending on what season of parenting you are in and how old your children are. This may have to be reading stories all together but each child getting to choose one and having a cuddle with you whilst you read it. All the way up to each child getting special time with you whilst the other happily waits in their room or bed. You may need to work up to this and that’s OK. If your children are not yet comfortable spending quiet time alone yet, take a read of this blog to start getting that process going.

Stagger Bedtime

Again, you are going to need one or more child to be content spending some quiet time alone so that you can put the other to bed. It is also helpful if your children have independent sleep skills so that you do not have to spend a long time waiting for each child to fall asleep before putting the next one to bed. If you need help working on self-settling download my free guide or book a free call to talk about getting 1:1 support.

Another helpful thing you can do is give your older child the parent part of the baby monitor whilst you put your younger child to bed, that way they can hear you and probably what stage of the bedtime routine you are at and how much longer it will be until you will be with them. Explain to your older child that if they wait quietly for you to put their younger brother or sister to bed it means they can have some special time with you before they go to bed too!

Remember, it’s OK if bedtime is not always the calm, smooth experience we would like it to be!

This is real life, but I do hope these tips help you create a bedtime routine that for the most part gets your children to bed happily and helps you feel more in control!