DH has discovered a cruel but effective way of getting the kids to sleep !

[OnEdge]

We used to have a nightmare at bedtimes, it used to drag on for two hours. Last week he suddenley decided to read them poetry and they go straight to sleep Now takes 15 minutes it is pure bliss having our evenings back. I think it is some by Spike Milligan.

Good for you! Poems are good (especially spike) funny not too long, hold their interest for the durration!
Anything that works.. Mine always need a bath to wind down, then a short story

Great idea! Dr Seuss rhymes work for us and there is a particularly good one by him called Sleep Book which has DD yawning in no time (it's actually very entertaining and a joy to read but all the characters are yawning so DD yawns away too and then nods off!).

Here's the Amazon link to Dr Seuss' Sleep Book:
www.amazon.co.uk/Dr-Seuss-Sleep-Book-Yellow/dp/0007169930/

We leave our youngest (5) alone watching Harry and the Dinosaurs on dhs phone. It only takes 5 minutes.

And it saves you from reading their same old favourite ad nauseam. I'll look into the Dr Seuss book as Cat in the Hat and Lorax are already popular in our house.

PS Since when was poetry cruel?

Nothing cruel about poetry - Now, DH has been known to read his OU maths course work to DD3 when she's really struggling to drop off - that's cruel!

I'll second the sleep book recommendation, it really does get dd yawning and sleepy and unfortunately me too when she is in that mood where she's really tired but wants to stay up and play

I always tell my ds to read something really boring when he can't get to sleep.

Whoo hoo Poledra I agree

Another vote for the Dr Seuss Sleep book (although the Lorax is our absolute favourite here, even though I start crying every single time I get to the end, despite having read it at least 100 times now).
Another top sleep tactic is to get out a book with no pictures. I'm reading The Jungle Book at the moment to DS (3) and, although he loves it, the lack of visual stimulation means he's asleep after about 3 pages. Expect we'll finish it sometime in 2012...

I have just ordered the Dr Seuss Sleep book so I hope it works :)