8 year Old Twins Bedtime

[bullit822000]

Hi, we have 8 year old twin girls who are inseparable. Their behaviour is normally good as gold, however they share a bedroom and trying to get them to go to sleep at night is a real task. We have tried previously having bunkbeds for them, but they didn't like this as one of our daughters has anxiety issues. So we have now changed this to a large bed that they both share. They have now shown that they can go to sleep in the same bed, but most nights they start chatting which then leads to carrying on. We have made threats and punishments but seems to be going nowhere. When we talk to them about separating them, my daughter with anxiety freaks out. What tends to happen is one daughter in with my wife and myself in with the other. Does anyone else have twins around this age that share a bedroom and have or had similar issues. Any advice appreciated.

Tell them if they don’t settle it’s separate beds again.
Then follow through
Anxiety does not equate to ignore you and stay awake messing about
They’re testing you - be firm

My twins are in bunks. They don't need to be in the same bed and I'd come down quite hard that if they can't behave then it's seperate beds. It's encouraging co-dependence and not fair on the non anxious one to be the support for their twin.

Are they identical?

No sleeping tips as such but as a twin parent, one of which has anxiety, (they are now 18), do whatever you can to stop the non-anxious twin being a prop for the anxious twin. We had to separate ours enough to make the dynamic much more healthy, which hopefully it has done (one at uni, one on gap year, but still close, fun relationship). Work on that and hopefully the sleeping issues will resolve. Not a quick fix though. We worked on separate outings/interests and it paid off.