Bath then dinner or vice versa?

[yaya]

Which way round do you do it? We have ALWAYS done bath then straight to bed to avoid overstimulation but recentyl it's taking DS ages to fall asleep at night and he's reallt restless. LAst night we did bath a little earlier then gave him 5 mins 'quiet playtime' (he watched baby einstein ) and he fell asleep MUCH quicker, coincidence??
What do you all do ? I'm considering switching bath and dinner, in Italy most people do bath then dinner then bed.

What are your thoughts?

[macsmum]

I do bath then bottle then bed, only because that is what tracy did on one of the bw shows i watched, she was trying to help a family with a little boy that took ages to nod off at bedtime, it has always worked for me the only trouble i had was keeping him asleep although not any more thank goodness. i guess with the EASY it is best to keep bottle away from bedtime, to stick with that pattern.

Emma

[Samuel's mum]

All I can say is that toddlers in Italy must be very neat eaters. Half the reason for Sam having a bath is to wash off his dinner - and he's not particularly messy.

[yaya]

Emma (macsmum) thats what we have always done and it used to really work. Now though, think coz it hotter, T gets very sweaty from his bottle ( and I think from havign a bath right before too) and getting him dressed after his bath really gets him and me worked up so by the time we go to bed, he's all over the place.
Emma ((samuel's mum), do u have some quiet time after abth or is it straight to bed?

[Samuel's mum]

We have a quiet storytime in the bedroom - usually a 'told' story sometimes a book. Then straight to bed. Sam doesn't nap these days so he often asks to go to sleep.

[yaya]

Oh I see, T is always pretty happy to go to bed, he's just very spirited and finds it hard to 'switch off' stories, that sort of thing tend to overstimulate. Baby einstein however seems to calm him down!

[mum101]

We do dinner, bath, milk in bed with story, then sleep.
I find she settles better after a bath, as I think it makes her slow down, sit and relax.  She is also a LOT more responsive to being bathed and dressed for bed when she is not hungry as she can get grumpy when not fed!

[xxkaty23xx]

We have dinner, then bath (because my kids insist on eating with their hands and letting their hair eat some too!) and then we have a story before bed, i have always done it in that order

[Wife and Mummy.]

Me too always dinner,bath,milk and stories or a dvd{sometimes} then its bed time.
And yes it is to wash dinner off of them.

[mcruari]

Michelle - it is an Italian thing, having a bath before dinner and not after. And do you know why? Coz the Italians are so worried about "la congestione" - which is a sort of indegestion caused by the cold (either drinks, cold water or cld temperature). Basically aprrox 20/30mins after eating all your blood goes to your stomach to help the digestive process, so they say that if you drink a cold, cold drink or go out into the cold or get a chill (from a bath maybe), then your stomach stops digesting and you get a block and can become pretty ill (vomit, severe stomach pains -similar to chest pains, shivers, etc.)
So Italians tend never to go swimming unless 3hrs have passed since their last meal (yeah, tell kids that ), they tend to bath/shower before dinner, never leave the house with wet hair (you could catch a cold, oh and sooooooo many more things
But after an Italian meal, you're not really able to do anything more than stand up and lie down

[victoriab]

That is very interesting Sinead.  It is so fun to learn about other cultures and why they do things they way they do.  My dd eats, bathes, bf, gets a story and then off to bed.  And like others have said, bathing after dinner is to wash dinner of of her.

[~Kellie~]

We do dinner, bath, milk, teeth then stories in bed.

We have dinner, then bath (because my kids insist on eating with their hands and letting their hair eat some too!) and then we have a story before bed, i have always done it in that order

LOL Katy it's the same here and EVERY time DD has baked beans (her fave) with her dinner she always rubs "bean juice" in her hair so
the bath is a must 

[yaya]

Sinead, I figured it was an Italian thing LOL hee hee my DP is like that I'm forever taking the p***! Just finding the bath is getting T hyped up so he now needs some winddown time after the bath, whereas before it was the winddown pretty much.

[Erin M]

We do dinner, bath, quiet time, and then bed.  Post bath time can be stories, TV, playing with Little People, or just hanging out with Mommy and Daddy, whatever gets her wound down a bit.  Like most others, half the purpose of our bath is to wash dinner off of her, so couldn't switch it.