A step-by-step guide to doing bedtime solo.
My husband travels for work during the summers. He always has and I honestly hope he always will – he gets wander-lusty and my homebody-self does not want to travel that much!
When it was just the two of us, while he was gone, I saw friends, went for hikes after work, ignored the housework, and binge-watched a lot of dramas.
When we had our first daughter, he didn’t travel from the time I was 5 months pregnant until our daughter was a year old. For her entire first year, I had someone else there with me. Home every night. Sharing meals together. And marveling at how fast our daughter was changing and growing.
The first time he traveled was right after our oldest turned 1. He was gone for 5 weeks.
I was so nervous about rustling our routine. I remember eating only 3 meals with another person the entire month. I was so worried about losing nap time or bedtime routines that I felt myself closing in and protecting what I knew worked.
This was not my first time being in survival mode, but it was my longest stint up to that point.
Being in survival mode is hard. It’s hard when you look back and realize you were in it, but it’s even harder when you can name it in the moment and feel helpless against it.
That summer, I was so deep in survival mode I couldn’t have named it if I tried. I didn’t know how I needed help, much less how to ask for that help. I felt stuck in my routine of nap time, bedtime, meals, and messes. It was exhausting and draining.
Baby number 2 came the next summer. Jeff traveled while I was pregnant and I started to feel more confident in his being gone. I knew what I needed and was getting better at asking for help. We started going to a different church and I was making friends who also had kids my daughters age.
Transitioning from 1 kid to 2 kids is a whole other blog post, but when our second was 10 months old, Jeff went back to traveling.
Bedtime Dread
I knew my dread before I had done a single day: what do I do about bedtime?
Jeff had taken on our oldest’s bedtime since weaning her more than a year earlier. Our routine was I took the baby to nurse and put her down and they did something and she went to sleep. I had no clue how I was going to do it.
I was still dealing with postpartum depression at that point, so forgive me: I can’t remember our bedtime routine.
I think I took the kids up at 7:00, got them ready for bed, read them stories and put my oldest into her bed to fall asleep on her own while I nursed the baby in her separate bedroom. The baby went to sleep after the toddler. Not what I was expecting, but not terrible.
Bedtime with Three Kids
Fast forward another two years and a baby later, I’m now doing three kids for bedtime when Jeff travels or has something going on at night. So, I know I can tell you my routine.
We all go upstairs at 7:00. If it’s been a long day, maybe I push it back to 6:45, but that’s hardly worth it because the kids still fall asleep at the same time, not any earlier.
I get them ready for bed one stage at a time. First: every kid into pajamas. For our middle daughter who is in pull-ups, this includes going potty before changing for bed.
Second: each kid brushes their teeth. When the kids are old enough to do this themselves, it’s amazing. When they’re not, you’re brushing all the teeth in your house for a whole lot of minutes each night.
Third: ready the baby’s room. Our kids sleep in darkness with a sound machine. They always have and I think it’s good for them. I get the baby’s room ready before starting to put anyone to bed because I need it to be ready without being in there.
Fourth: get all of us into the girls room and shut the door. The important element here is containing the children. With the door closed, they all know that it is bedtime and there is no need to leave the room. Whether they play, lay down, or listen to stories next is irrelevant. The closed door is enough to signify that the day, outside of the room, is over. I sit on one of the girls beds with them each on a side. The girl whose bed we are on has the head of her bed as her side while the other is next to me at the foot. The baby wanders until it’s time for lights out.
Fifth: read stories. Each kid can pick one story for me to read. I have always read 3 stories at bedtime, and now it just works out to be one per kid. My little guy usually tries to rip up paper books, so he plays with a board book or runs around. He’ll get to a point of reading with us, but he’s not there yet.
Sixth: lights out, songs, and prayers. I finish reading stories and find the baby. Sometimes he’s with me already, and sometimes he is scaling the bookcase, climbing over a bed rail, and beaming with pride and exhausting late-day energy. I put the baby in his sleep-sack and get him set to nurse. My girls fight over who gets to turn out the lights and then we all stay on the same bed in the dark for songs: one girl laying on her pillow in her blanket, one girl curled up by me at the foot, and the baby on his nursing pillow in my lap.
I sing the same three songs I’ve always sang since having one tiny baby: “Jesus Loves Me,” two verses of “Amazing Grace,” (when it’s been a hard day I sing the third verse as a reminder that we can make it “through many dangers” and that “Grace will lead me home”), and the refrain from “Grace that is Greater than All Our Sin.” I’ve been singing these same three songs for years. I consider it a comfort cue that it’s time to go to sleep. (Hopefully I’m not training them to fall asleep while singing these in church!)
I’ll pray for all of them and then sit in silence. Usually, my middle daughter is asleep by this point, the baby is dozing and nursing, and my oldest is coming up with all sorts of questions about life. But the important part is that we made it.
Happy Ending for All
I whisper with my oldest for a minute or two and then tell her I need to get the baby down, but I’ll be back for snuggles when he’s in his crib. I bring the baby to his room, usually still nursing, and put him to bed like I would if Jeff were home.
Then I move my middle child into her own bed from the foot of her sister’s bed, where she snuggles into her railing and continues on in deep sleep. I give her head a kiss and hope she stays little forever.
Then I snuggle my oldest for a few minutes and ask her “what else?” until she runs out of questions or stops making sense. I snuggle her extra and give her a kiss goodnight.
Shes pretty good at putting herself to sleep. The other two kids are already sleeping and I have made it to freedom! Or at least, made it to autonomy and a waiting load of dishes.
I hope this helps give you ideas for putting multiple kids to bed, when you are on your own. I know it’s hard to find helpful advice on putting multiple kids to bed when it’s not your normal routine. So here are some helpful mindsets to have surrounding bedtime:
Everyone Gets 80%
Realizing that bedtime isn’t going to be ideal for any one person is strangely freeing. It’s an important thing to learn that “good enough” is still enough. Trying to get everyone a 100% bedtime will burn you out and is, quite frankly, not possible. Aiming for 80% satisfaction still gets you a passing grade: everyone sleeps. No one person gets every piece of an ideal bedtime done perfectly, but everyone gets enough of what they need.
Get Yourself Ready Too
There are nights when the day was just too long to continue functioning after bedtime. When I sense those days, I too will brush my teeth and get into pajamas. That way, we are all ready to sleep when it comes time. And if I do the dishes in my pj’s so be it! I’m just more ready for sleep when I’m finished!
Bonus Warning:
Though the time for bed does not change, the kids wake up earlier when it is just me at home. They have less parental energy put into them and don’t need as much sleep to recover. The first week I was solo after we had our third child was brutal. Their wake-up time crept from 6:30 back to 5:00 in a three-day span. So, while waking up at 5:00 may be a goal of mine, it is because I want time by myself before my kids wake up. So fair warning: the days might become longer on both ends.
Remember This
Whether you’re putting multiple kids to bed for the 1st or 500th time, remember this: you are their mother and you know how to love your kids. There will be rough nights and easy nights. But no matter the state of your bedtime, your kids know you love them and that is what is important.
You’ve got this, friend.