If you are raising two kids under the age of two, everything seems to be a little more difficult. However, I found bedtime to be the hardest of all. We knew we had to figure out how to make it work without wasting two hours of our night trying to get everyone asleep. Our family established a routine that has stuck with us even as our oldest is now two and our youngest is quickly approaching one.
My husband is currently on day shift, which means every night he is home and able to help with this routine. This makes everything a little easier. But, I am also able to accomplish this alone for nights he gets home late or when he is on night shift and isn’t home to help.
Throughout this routine I will tell you how it gets done with one parent and with two parents, so you can be able to try it out no matter what the circumstances are in your home.
Let’s get into it!
- Bath time
We bathe our kids every night. They are boys and always end the night a little smelly and dirty from the activities of the day. Everyone in our house bathes before getting into bed because I believe it keeps our beds a cleaner and more cozy place to relax in every night.
Our youngest right now is 8 months old and can sit up on his own, but he’s not stable enough to be sitting freely in the bath. So, we use our Skip Hop MOBY Smart Sling 3-Stage Tub for him and place the whole thing in the tub with our oldest.
If my husband is home, he starts bath time on his own and I get pajamas and diapers ready to go for after bath time. I also reset the boys’ room that they share if needed so I don’t need to worry about it during bedtime or after they are asleep. If I am doing bedtime solo, I do all of this before we start bath time and usually get my oldest involved in the pick up. Check out my cleaning routine I complete after the kids go to bed!
- Pajamas and diapers on
After bath time is done, we bring both boys to our bed for a big space to get them in clean diapers and pajamas for the night. If I am working solo, both boys come out of the bath at the same time. But, if my husband is home, the baby comes out first and I start getting him ready while our oldest finishes his bath. My husband brings him in once he is done and gets him dressed. While we are dressing them, we usually sing songs.
- Brush teeth
Next, it is time to brush teeth. Our oldest goes with my husband to get his teeth flossed and brushed. At night, we really make sure that his teeth are nice and clean so we usually do most of it for him while also teaching him how to do it himself well. For teeth brushing in the morning, we let our son do it all on his own, even if it’s not the best job.
For days I am alone, the baby just comes with me while we brush big brother’s teeth. He currently doesn’t have any teeth, but once his teeth push through, he’ll be joining in on this step.
- Pray
We say our prayers with the kids every night. I came up with a little prayer we say at the beginning of our prayers: “Thank you God for this day. Thank you for the food in my tummy, clothes on my body, and the roof over my head.” We also do arm movements with it: prayer hands for the beginning, touching our tummy for the food, twinkle fingers up the body for clothes, and a triangle hands over our head for the roof.
We pray for all of the people in our family by name and our son loves to think about his family members before bed. We pray for anything special going on. For example, we are going on an airplane next week for a wedding so we pray that we will have a safe flight. And then I ask my son if there is anything he wants to pray for. In the past, he has said specific family members, which is just the sweetest, and he also has prayed for his stuffed animal he was holding.
Finally, we end our prayers with these prayers: Saint Michael the Archangel, Angel of God, Our Father, three Hail Mary’s, Glory Be, and O My Jesus. We like to include these in our nightly prayers so our kids can become familiar with them and one day memorize them. Our oldest son does the Sign of the Cross on his own and it is just the cutest thing hearing him say, “Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Amen.”
- Read a few books, no more than three
At this point in our routine, we let our oldest son pick some books to read. He goes through phases where he picks the same 2-3 books every night for a month or longer. Right now, we have been reading The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss every single night. If we read through two books and he is going for a third, we make sure he knows this is the last one. We always cut it off at three books and we stick to that, even if it causes a fuss.
Now, on days when my husband is home, we let the baby hear one story and then I take him to another room to nurse him. On days when I am running bedtime solo, I nurse the baby while I am reading the stories. Has anyone else become the master multi-tasker since becoming a mom of two under two? If you can’t make this work, you can also nurse after finishing the stories.
- Time to sleep
I put the baby into his crib, who is sometimes already asleep by this point, and we then let our oldest know it is time to sleep and we put his blanket on. He likes to get his back scratched/tickled to help him get sleepy. Once I notice his eyes start getting heavy, I give him a kiss and say goodnight while he is still awake so he knows that I am leaving the room.
I noticed that if I leave after the point he has fallen asleep, if he wakes up even just slightly and I’m gone, he cries wondering where I went. But, if I leave while he is still awake, but very sleepy, he stays in his bed.
That does it for our bedtime routine! This takes about one hour when my husband is helping and about an hour and a half when I am alone. Obviously my kids are not perfect and sometimes this doesn’t go perfectly. We still have nights where everyone is screaming and we have been at it for almost two hours. But for the most part, this works and the more we do it, the more my kids know what to expect and know what to do.
Our oldest is sleeping through the night, sleeping about 10-12 hours a night in his own bed. Our youngest still wakes 1-2 times a night. Sometimes he just needs a back tickle to fall back asleep and sometimes he wants milk. If I can’t get him back to sleep with a back tickle, that’s when I resort to milk. I don’t make that my first resort because I’m trying to phase out the night wakings and don’t want him to get used to midnight milk.
I hope you found something in here that you can implement into your own bedtime routine. This is a routine that I have been tweaking overtime and I feel like I have recently perfected what works in our house and for our family. Don’t be afraid to try something just to see if it works and if not, you can always tweak it to make it work for you.
With love,
Victoria O’Brien