room sharers - do you let them talk after bed time?

[thewomanwhothoughtshewasahat]

dds (6 and 4) going through a not-so-angelic phase at the moment. partly manifesting itself through extended conversations whilst in bed, often ending up in arguments and tears. (including mine )Have told them tonight that from now on if they are quiet after the clock has struck 8 they can do a bead in their bead pot(mumsnet pasta jar), but was wondering if anyone else has this problem and how they deal with it.

[thewomanwhothoughtshewasahat]

I am desperate not to give my study up btw, really really don't want to seperate them

[SaintGeorge]

My boys are allowed to stay up later when it is a non-school night.

For every minute they go over the cut-off time on school nights, they lose a minute from their late nights. Took them a couple of weeks to get used to the idea, but works a treat now.

[roisin]

We have a cut-off time after which they can only read silently. If they muck around at bedtime then the day after the light goes off 20 mins earlier.

When one - like ds2 tonight - is particularly tired I put him to bed/sleep first and let ds1 watch a video or something downstairs until ds2 has gone off.

[thewomanwhothoughtshewasahat]

guess what - my bead bribe was working - but now dh has come home and gone in there to talk to them. How can he expect them to take a rule seriously if he doesn't? I know if I say something he'll get annoyed cos he hasn't seen them all day, but its a bit undermining isn't it?

[nooka]

I have the same problem. My two are pretty good at settling down to sleep now (they are 7 and 5), but a year or so ago I would quite often find them playing wild leaping on and off the bunk bed games after lights out. We started with removing privileges (bedtime stories and music) and when that didn't work went in heavy with the yelling. The last step has always been removing one of them (sleep in Mummy and Daddy's room) which for some reason is very upsetting. When dh or I are late I think that a quick cuddle and quiet chat is OK, it's when he goes in and gets them excited that I get annoyed. Now we live in separate houses I have no idea what he does after lights out at his place of course, but since they have both been at school they are mostly pretty tired by bedtime and zonk out fairly fast.