Ds is 2y11m and dd is 5y10m. They share a room, and up until this summer sleep was relatively stress free. Routine of bath, story, bed. They used to mess around at story time in bed so we brought stories out to the living room which stopped that.
For the past 5 to 6 weeks bedtime has involved them shouting at us and each other, getting out of bed and messing around with the door, relentless "I need a weeeeeee" and "Im thiiiirrrrrsty" etc.
Me and dh always end up getting shouty with them which I hate. And we live in a small flat so leaving them to shout and get up directly affects us and our neighbours.
So far, we have tried bribery (be good at bedtime and we will do X tomorrow), ignoring (see neighbours above), sitting in with them (works but I dont want to make it a Thing), separate bedtimes (they mess around and cry because the other isnt there), carrot approach (stickers and reward of sleepover at Nans).
We usually get one on board quite soon after bedtime then the other fucks about.
I have started hating bedtime.