Help required from people with 2 littles ones that share a room ??

[sparkle1977]

I have two boys, one is almost 4, the other is 2.4. They currently share a large double bedroom and have been for some time now.

Up until now we have been putting the youngest to bed at about 7pm and basically waiting for him to fall asleep before putting the oldest up, usually around 7.30 but can be much later if DS2 keeps getting up etc etc.

However we are now thinking of putting both boys to bed at the same time, probably about 7.30pm.

Anyone have any tips to encourage DCs to stay in their beds, not play with toys, not run around upstairs etc ??? I am anticipating a hellish time.
We currently have a stair gate at the top of the stairs preventing them from coming down, which in fact DS1 can open himself now anyway.

Ours share a very small room bedroom and keep toys and stuff everywhere else in the playroom, so have less distractions and never play in their bedroom, so feel free to ignore this. We found that enlisting the help of our eldest to set ds an example was a good way to get her in to bed properly. Ds is usually more difficult, but we found that reading a bedtime story each, with his first, means that he often starts to doze during dd's story. This means we have to keep dd's story fairly peaceful and only use a fairly dim light, but if it gets me a bit more sleep I'm happy to do it.

Ours are 18months apart (7 and 5.5) and have shared a room for 4 years, and the same bedtime all their lives.

I think you need to anticipate a hellish time for a while, and hold the line. With us it is no chat, no lights back on, stay in bed and just try to be quiet,

Ds1 is probably ready for a later bedtime, TBH. If he asks us to, we will come back after 10 minutes (by which time DS2 will be snoring) and then Ds1 looks at books for 10 minutes before going back to bed, and trying for another 10 minutes. This is officially allowed.

His other trick is to sneak into the spare room unheard and play computer games once DS2 is asleep. This is Not Allowed!