If your DCs share a room, how do you do bedtimes in terms of reading books etc?

[Ceebee74]

We are going to be moving DS2 (22mo) into DS1's (4.3) bedroom soon and I am a bit about bedtimes.

At the moment, DS2 goes to bed at 7.15 and I read him a book in bed and put a music CD on and he goes to sleep. Ds1 goes to bed at approx 7.45, I read him a book in bed, turn his story CD on and he goes to sleep.

How am I going to do this as surely, if DS2 is already asleep when DS1 goes to bed, it will disturb him? But I love lying in bed with them reading stories - it is just not the same doing it downstairs on the sofa. Plus Ds2 is not always asleep when DS1 goes to bed now so I can't guarantee he would be asleep anyway.

What do you do?

my littlies don't share any more, but when they were younger and shared I would do exactly what you describe, just talk a bit quieter when putting the older one to bed and encourage them to be quiet as the littler one was asleep. It worked for us.

As they got a bit older, I started taking them to bed together and reading them a shared story, then tucking them into their respective beds - didn't work as well because as soon as I'd left they'd get out of bed and play again (hence the not sharing any more)

Mine are 2 and 4, they have shared since youngest was 6mo. They go to bed at the same time, share two stories (one picked by each) youngest may wander off to flick through other books while i read longer chapter type books to dd without many pics, but when she picks picture books he listens and then may pick them himself later on. Then its lights out, cd on if neighbours are being noisy

I read the stories on my bed and now they toddle off to bed together.. When the were younger it was much as squonk describes.. And If I had to settle the baby (quick boob to sleep) I left DD flicking through a few books to choose which one she wanted to read..

The deal was that if she made noise there was no story.. It worked!