2.5 year old twins having too much fun with new found freedom to go to sleep at night!

[TwimMummy]

Hi

We have 2.5 year old twins who, until moving them to toddler beds, have always been good sleepers.

We have a bedtime routine that worked well when they were in cots (like the beds these were next to each other). However now that they are in beds, they happily go along with the routine and then promptly get up when we leave the room! They are having loads of fun - making dens on the floor with their duvets, pulling clothes out of the drawers etc. We've tried going back in, putting them back to bed etc but they keep doing this until they eventually fall asleep (usually on the floor) or we put them into their travel cots (when they fall asleep almost immediately)

We can't go back to cots (my son propelled himself headfirst out of his which is why we moved them to the beds!) The travel cots are actually tents and they've always slept well in these (we don't even try their beds for afternoon naps anymore) We've taken all the toys etc out of the bedroom and secured the drawers/wardrobe. I'm fairly sure that if we separated them they'd go to sleep no problem and that they are egging each other on!

However we really don't want to separate them - would be grateful for any advice on what's worked for other twins / siblings who share a room!

Many thanks

We had this - not twins but siblings. Just played, talked, laughed, sang, for hours after we said goodnight. We had to separate them. Not permanently - we only had that one room for them - but one of them would have to sleep in our bed until they went to sleep, then we carried them through to their own bed. We only did this if they didn't settle down after 20 mins or so (so every night basically!) and if they were really super tired occasionally started off the night like this.

Now they mostly get to stay in their own beds because they're a bit better about going to sleep but we did the above for at least a year.

We've only got one and he ran around and was a complete pain when we took the sides of his cot at about the same time. He'd empty his drawers and fling the clothes down the stairs.

We put them back on for another 6 months or so. Much calmer the second time round!

Thank you both! It's comforting to know we aren't the only ones!!

We've shifted their bedtime to be half an hour later which seems to have worked the last couple of nights as they've been too tired to do anything other than go to sleep. Fingers crossed that this is the answer!

Thanks again
Catherine