Sleeping Arrangements

One of the biggest challenges of having two kids is putting them to bed.  Though my 5 year old is old enough to sleep in his own room, he still requires some companionship and tbh it is something that I cherish every night.  However, enter a baby into this equation and you've got yourself some serious pythagorean doozy of a problem.  I'm not sure how other mums do it, but here is a rough schedule of how I've been putting my boys to bed, every night.  It's not perfect but it does allow for some one on one time for big boy baby number 1.

7:00 Shower/bath time for kids - I wash both kids together in the shower with baby in a stand alone tub, I was older brother and myself and we both take turns in entertaining the baby while the other one is washing.

7:30 After our shower and bath, we are all dried off and older brother is asked to wait for me in his room while kept entertained with his story CDs, while I breastfeed baby and sing him a lullaby.

8:00 I put the baby in his cot and say good night, turn off the lights and leave the room.  Sometimes he coos and talks to himself but most nights he will be out by 8:15 (more on his sleep training later).

8:00-8:45/9:00 I spend about 45 minutes to an hour reading and playing with older brother and try to put him in his bed before 9pm.  We cuddle and sometimes both of us will doze off by then.

This is roughly how I put both of my kids to bed every night, and I know on screen it looks really put together but there are nights when it's chaos and all hell breaks loose.  No matter what, I have found that the key is always persistence, in the beginning older brother will definitely be not happy about leaving me and baby to sleep and would often disrupt baby's feeding and sleeping but after while (I think it was about a month for my boy) he understood that letting me do this, will allow for more mummy time when I am done.  I think in any case that deals with putting both kids to bed/getting both kids to eat etc, the key is always to make sure the older one doesn't feel like he is being neglected, make sure he is kept entertained and is happy during the time when you have to tend to the little one.