How to help your partner be more involved at bedtime
All parents are capable of nurturing babies and toddlers at bedtime! However, many families find themselves in a place where only one parent is doing bedtime. Whether this is a pattern formed from habit or your baby has strong preferences, you can gently shift the pattern so that both parents are involved in bedtime.
Parent Preference is Normal
Before jumping into the bedtime tips, I want to pause and acknowledge that parent preference around sleep is common and normal. It can also be really challenging and bring up a lot of emotions for the non-preferred parent. If you are nursing, the nursing parent often becomes the go to parent for comforting and sleep, and as time passes, this pattern is simply your default. If your baby or toddler only wants one parent, it’s not a reflection of the other parent’s relationship with their child. Parent preferences ebb and flow over time, and we can nudge them along to a more even place.
Let’s talk about some tips that might help both parents manage bedtime.
1. Start involving both parents early.
If you can start in the newborn period and keep it going, many babies will accept both parents (and other caregivers) soothing them to sleep. If this is the expectation from the beginning, baby will be more comfortable with more than one person soothing to sleep.
2. Make sure each parent and baby are spending time together on their own during the day.
Littles accept a parent better at bedtime if they spend time one on one with them during the day. This strengthens the relationship, and helps them figure out their own ways of comforting and connecting. If your typical bedtime parent is also your go to for any sort of comfort parent, you’ll need to intentionally support a bit of a pattern shift here. This creates opportunities for the other parent to step in to offer comfort. Make weekly (or more) parent baby dates part of your routine before trying to tackle bedtime.
3. Create a bedtime book with pictures of both parents doing bedtime.
Social stories and visual narratives are powerful. If your little only knows one parent doing bedtime, they may not connect the other parent with bedtime and sleep. Create a story showing how both parents can do bedtime, and how lovely it can be to snuggle to sleep with either parent.
4. Make bedtime a joint effort.
Include both parents in the bedtime process. This can look like both parents doing bedtime, but with a gradual shift. Do your bedtime as normal, but include the second parent there in a passive role. When that’s going well, have the not typical bedtime parent start to participate more actively. Eventually they can take the lead while the other parent steps back. Another way is to have the one parent (the one who currently isn’t doing bedtime) take the lead on the first stage and finish up the routine together. Or, if your little is very particular about how they are parented to sleep, you can do a parent hand off for those last snuggles.
5. Give them the time to find their own rhythm.
It takes time for parent and baby to find a routine that works for them. If your partner only does bedtime rarely, they can’t build momentum. It always feels new. Having your partner do bedtime at least once or twice a week gives time to build momentum and comfort with the process.
6. Give them the space to find what works.
For many families, having the typical bedtime parent out of the house at bedtime makes the process easier, at least at first. Little ones often have a sense of when their parent is home and not coming verses out of the house. If the parent is truly out, it gives more space for the other parent and baby to work things out, realizing that they are in it together. Bonus, if the typical bedtime parent is feeling really burnt out, this gives them some time to recharge.
7. What works for one parent doesn’t always work for the other parent.
Rather than having your partner do exactly what you do, allow them to figure out what works for them. This might be messy at first, but over time they’ll find their own rhythm. Prepare for it to take a bit longer and be ready to experiment.
8. Littles can fall asleep differently for different people.
If you nurse to sleep, you can still have your partner, or another caregiver do bedtime. Littles are adaptable, even the most nursing focused ones. Bottles, rocking, snuggles, babywearing may all be good options. And the nursing parent can go right along nursing to sleep when doing bedtime.
9. Support any big emotions.
Sometimes littles really don’t like changes in their routines, including a change in which parent does bedtime. For babies, this means lots of soothing and support. If your toddler can tell you just how unhappy they are, this means supporting their emotions along with the soothing and support. It’s ok to persist if it’s important to your family to make this change. The key is in the support.