kids waking each other up very early!

[ssd]

Really, the title says it all.

I have 2 ds ages 3 + 6 years. We live in a small 2 bed house and the walls are very thin! The trouble is they both STILL wake in the night from bad dreams, habit, etc. etc.,and to avoid waking each other up we've tried separating them and now dh sleeps in one bedroom with usually the 3 yr. old and I sleep in the other bedroom with the 6 yr. old.

Now the 3 yr. old has also started to wake up at 5.45am and it's a rush to get him up and downstairs quietly before he wakes the 6 yr. old, but more often than not he manages to wake the older one as he is a very light sleeper.....

So now the 6 yr. old is going into school knackered.

What can I do??? I've run out of bedrooms to put them in and an extension isn't possible just now....

Any advice would be really appreciated.
As you can imagine it does nothing for our love life!!

I have this problem with my Ds's too. My almost 3 Year old was waking early, and waking his 7YR old Brother up too.
My eldest DS is a very good sleeper, still needs more than 12 hrs a night. DS2 also sleeps well, but started waking early, i think it started when the clocks went back.
TBH we put up with it for a couple of Weeks, then i had had enough!!
I told him one day, that when he went to bed that night, if he woke up before the alarm clock, we were not going to go to him - he /had/ to go back to bed.
The next morning he woke early, and i went to him and told him that he had to go back to sleep, it isn't wake-up time yet.
He screamed for a good hour (we did like C/C, going back saying the same thing, but leaving it longer each time.
It took a couple of days, and we were all knackered for those few days - but it has worked, he gets up much later now.
Really what i am trying to say, is a couple of days of it actually getting worse, has made it much better in the long run.

Our two share a room as well, and we try to ignore early waking. If we have to go in we simply say 'It's not time to get up yet, go back to sleep.' You have to be very boring about it - no stroking, or playing, or laughing. We gradually delayed going in to them longer and longer, and we've gone from them wanting to get up at about 5.30, to lasting until 7/7.30. Though they still want to get up if they hear us up and about. It's much easier to do this at this time of year, when dawn is getting later!

I have actually the same problem, My Dd1 is 4 and waking up at 5-6am, and she wakes everyone up as she goes straight into DD2's room and then the two of them wake DS up (who shares a room with DD1. I don't hear her till its too late as she doesn't come into our room till she needs her bum wiping or something (lovely to wake up to) DS has had to come home twice this week as he is so tired and his Cerebral palsy plays up and he can bearly walk and get tremors in his hands. I don't know what to do, so will watch this thread with interest.

We have just had a phase of this and actually started putting dd (2) to bed later than ds (4.5 and just started school so KNACKERED. It seems to have evened out again now and they are both sleeping well. So I'd probably try and work out how much sleep the three year old needs (does he still sleep in the day? if so I'd cut that out) and work respective bedtimes back from there.

Mieow - could you not you put your dds in together and your ds separate? Then put a stairgate on your dds door so even if they wake up they have to stay in their bedroom until it's time to get up?