I have 2 DC. DC1 is almost 6 and the worlds worst sleeper, almost since birth has never slept through the night, scared of the dark, nightmares and everything else!
DC2 nearly 3 and has always been my amazing sleeper. Normally sleeps 13 hours a night. If they get woken up by something they are happy to self soothe back to sleep and generally never had any issues at night time.
Now my issue... we only have a two bedroom house which means the DC are supposed to share a room. This hasn't worked for a while because DC1 will constantly wake up crying and it wakes her sibling up and then it ruins both of their sleep. So for the past year or so we have just been letting Dc1 sleep in our bed (yes I know, terrible parenting!!) because to be honest everybody then has a brilliant night sleep. However DC2 has now started to become frightened at night, I've put a nightlight in the bedroom and sit with them until they go to sleep. But this isn't enough and now we are having constant screaming all night because they won't go to sleep without me in their bed.
Our bed just isn't physically big enough for 4. I know that the kindest thing to do is to make them both sleep in their own beds but I feel like this is too much to tackle in one step so I'm trying to get my youngest back in to sleeping and then I can tackle the issues with the eldest.
Last night I tried being comforting, sitting by DC2s bed, holding hands, soothing ect. This didn't work as every time I moved they screamed. I tried being a bit stricter and just going in putting them back in bed saying goodnight and walking out again. That didn't work. It was just non stop screaming for hours until they were eventually so exhausted they just fell asleep on their duvet on the floor.
I can't handle another night of the same so I'm hoping someone might come along with some other helpful suggestions please??