I'm like sneaky sparkle - the odd times I have have been out where I've needed to take DD with me and not been at someone's house, I've given her as close to her routine as she's used to wherever we are. Recently that meant dinner on a plane, BF once landed and asleep in the car on the way home (2 hour drive from airport).

Other times where I have been out to other's homes, it's meant stealing other people's bath and a quiet bedroom and giving DD as much of her bedtime routine as possible and then cuddles/feeds to sleep even if it's meant I've missed a course in dinner etc.

More recently, we've been able to gently start DH trying to put my DD to bed at night. She no longer feeds to sleep but has cuddled to sleep for quite a while now. We tried numerous times to see if she would let DH go through her bedtime routine with her without me. It didn't work quite a number of times we tried over several months and I had to rescue her as she would get very upset if I wasn't there (she had lots of separation anxiety generally, not just at night from about 8 -12 months). Now that she is forming a stronger and stronger bond with her Daddy (in the last few months in particular) she is happy to trust him to look after her at night time, is not anxious when I am not there. So now we take every second night alternating to do her bedtime routine and cuddle her to sleep. She loves it. And this also means that I can now comfortably leave the house for an evening out and know that everything is okay, including being able to leave before her bedtime.

Is it possible to start introducing your DH into the bedtime routine gently over time? We did that with DH doing more of bath time and more reading books before bath, and as this was happening, my DD stopped feeding to sleep so we changed to cuddling to sleep. This then gave the flexibility to have DH get more involved again, slowly as she became ready.

HTH