bedtime a total pain since moving dds in together

[rhetorician]

DD1 is almost 4, DD2 13 months; we moved them in to same room just before Christmas. DD1 is often jealous of DD2. At first it went OK, but we have a lot of competitive behaviour - DD1 climbing in DD2's cot, wanting milk etc. And a good bit of getting out of bed/messing about from DD1 (which never used to happen when she was on her own). We do pjs, teeth, stories and then bed. Sometimes DD1 shouts for water/bear/whatever you're having yourself and disturbs the baby as she is crying herself trying to go to sleep. My DP in particular gets very stressed by it. Any tips or suggestions. Currently they go to bed at the same time which might be the problem.

They are fine once asleep, however...

Stay in there until they sleep? Keep the interaction minimal but stop dd1 from causing trouble. Once they're used to it, you can work on leaving.

Can you put the younger one to bed first? By say half an hour so the older one gets some one on one time and feels "grown up" but say she has to be super quiet when she goes to bed ? (Bribery sort of).....

I second Fairylea. When we moved the Dses into the same room, ds2 went up at 6.30, ds1 at 7pm. Ds2 would fall asleep, and ds1 would get some time with me or dh on his own. As they've grown we've adjusted their bedtimes but ds2 still goes up half an hour before ds1.

Does she respond to reward charts? Perhaps she gets a point or whatever each time she goes to bed nicely and doesn't disturb her sister.

I think you're right - dd2 sleeps fairly deeply and wouldn't wake for long; we put dd1 to bed after dd2 a couple of times over Christmas and it worked quite well. All the books and stories are in their room though, so she'd need to pick them out before bed - decisions are not her strong point!!

Why not do stories in your room just for dd1?

I would make life easy for yourself and choose two books yourself and let her choose one of the two downstairs while you put dd 2 to bed. Then either read downstairs or in your bed. I'm tempted to say downstairs as you don't want to encourage dd 1 into seeing your bed as her bed! Could be a whole new can of worms
.... !

aaargh, dd1 claiming she is not sleepy and doesn't want to be quiet and needs a new pyjama top etc etc. I should say that lovely as she is, she isn't the most obedient of children - the one thing that she was always good about was bedtime...