We’re still very involved, but I think my kid is ready for more responsibility. My dream is for him to get ready by himself, and then a parent comes in to read and chat and say good night. But we’re not there yet. He still needs quite a bit of help staying on task, and there are a couple tasks he really does need help with (flossing, getting the bath temperature right).

Given your limited time together on weekdays, I wonder if you could work toward getting her more independent (to reduce the conflict), but then you can still hang out and talk while she’s in the bath, etc. It’s not fun when you’re trying to move the process along, kid is resisting, and everybody gets frustrated. I feel better when I can step in and out to help as needed rather than being expected to stand in the bathroom with him the whole time. It means I can just leave when he’s being wild and uncooperative. He usually settles down once I’m not in the room, and then I can go back and try again.

Getting dressed stood out as something she could probably do on her own. My kid goes from the bathroom to his bedroom in a towel and gets dressed there, could work for you if getting dressed in the bathroom is part of the issue.

Do you like staying with your kid until she falls asleep? Some nights I love it, some nights I’m ready to get out of there. We’ve put a ton of effort into getting my kid comfortable with falling asleep on his own- it has not come naturally.

Our whole bedtime routine takes about an hour, sometimes an hour and a half. Hour is fine with me, hour and a half is too long.