Issues with Siblings Sharing a Room

My kids don't share a room regularly but sometimes 'sleepover' together. I use this method when friends sleepover as well. After the lights are out, I allow 10 minutes of 'talk-time'. It's supposed to be quiet voices and staying in the bed. Then I come back and say it's now time to sleep. I find the permission to talk for a while diffuses the lights out issue.

I sometimes use the 'losing privileges' as well when they are delaying going to bed. It's usually something they wanted to do or have the next day.

Try one warning that if the disruptive behavior continues you will remove their pillows(or stuffed animals). Then be consistent with the follow through. The key to it though is that when you remove the item, set it outside their door and tell them when they are ready to settle down and go to sleep they may get them from outside the door. Also warn them that if you have to come back after they get them back, you will enjoy sleeping with them yourself. I.

Hi there! We, too, had to move our two oldest kids into one room when we had our third. The only way we have made it work is for our son, who is younger, to go to bed first. He has always been our best sleeper and also needs the most sleep, so he's in bed by 7:30 and asleep with 10 minutes. Then at about 8 or 8:15 we can put our daughter to bed. On nights when we're out a little late, and I want to get them to bed at the same time, I have to lay down on their floor until my son is asleep, otherwise it's an hour of giggling and making tooting noises! Luckily we don't have to do that very often. Anyway, I don't know if this is helpful, but it works for us. Good luck!

Once you put them to bed, that is it. You don't go back upstairs. My daughter always tries for one more thing-sip of water, go to the potty, etc. I try very hard to stick to the rule of once I have put her to bed that she is done. There should not be repeating of any of the bedtime routine. Hopefully, they will learn that you mean it. Good luck.
Good idea about different bedtimes.

I love the silly time suggestion!!!!!!! When my sister and I were that age I couldn't get my younger sister to shut up and go to sleep (yes, I actually craved sleep, even as a child---long story). I took a cue from my mother and played the "lets see who can be the quietest the longest?" It actually worked about a quarter of the time. Unfortunately, there came a timewhen 10 seconds after the game was started she'd make a loud noies, declare I'd won and keep up whatever she was doing. Is there any way to make it a game or a reward system for staying in bed and being quiet (without tattling:-))?

just a thought,
S.

I have two kids age seven and five. They share a room and have similar issues to what you describe. Our solution is staggered bed times. The five year old goes to bed at 7:30 and the seven year old goes to bed at 8:30 when her brother is already asleep. This works out great most of the time unless the younger one is having trouble falling asleep (but this rarely happens). My daughter gets extra time to read to herself or for me to read to her before bed.

Hope this helps!

Different bedtimes.. oldest girl goes to bed one half hour after younger...gives them time to relax and the older one feels responsible and special....

i used to have 2 stepdaughters who were 19 months apart and lived with us half time, and what helped me was to set limits on noisy time. i'd go through their normal bedtime routine and then give them a timer set for 15 minutes to "get the sillies out" in their beds. they could talk, giggle, read to each other, but they had to stay in bed. during this time i would have the bathroom light on. after the timer went off, i turned off the bathroom light and turned on their nightlight, and this is how they knew it was time to be quiet and try to go to sleep. if they were caught out of bed during silly time, then silly time was done for the night (that their bedroom floor was super creaky was very helpful). during calm down time if they started to get loud i separated them. i offered one warning a night for quiet time and warned them before silly time that if they got out of bed, it was lights out.
i hope you are able to find something that works for you!

First, remember that some of the best sister memories come from these moments.
That being said, they do need to learn that getting wild and getting out of bed are unacceptable.
Try incentives or consequences. One of the tactics we used was to give my daughter a marble jar. Each night when you put them to bed, allow them to put one marble in their jars. Each time they get out of their room, they lose one marble. This means they are allowed one freebie before getting penalized. When they get a set number of marbles in their jar, then they get a certain reward.
Or you could do a sticker chart. For every night that they stay in bed quietly they get a sticker. At bedtime, if they got a sticker the previous night, then they get to stay up 15 minutes later. If they did not get a sticker the previous night, then they have to go to bed 15 minutes sooner. Or if could be one more or less bedtime stories... whatever. You could also try separating their bedtimes. Put the younger one to bed 30 minutes before the older one.
Try also being sure that they are not wound up before bed, but are relaxed.

I have a rule with my daughter. In bed at 8pm, 30 minutes of reading together and then bed. If she gets up then I deduct that time from her reading time, the next night and so on. She soon got the routine. As for sibling rivalry, check out a book called 1-2-3 Magic by Dr. Thomas Phelan. This will help take all the argument out of the arguments. Good luck.

A couple of ideas:

You could remove the door from their room and tell them you did that so there would be no more secrets from you.

Then you can tell them, like I did my son who was not an early to bed guy, that he could had to go to bed at 8 (he was 8) and I realized that he could not sleep, but he had to be horizontal (yes he understood that word). He could take as many books as he wanted, etc. but he had to be horizontal-face down, or face up. That year he taught himself to read, and he created 33 chapters in a sci-fi book, mapped out the constellations, etc... But he stayed in bed, he had a great imagination.

You would enforce the rule of silence of course. Provide them with book lights, and books at their level, no toys, except a bear or such.

Another idea would be to provide a room divider. Make it interesting by having each child paint their own side with different colors, different subjects... Then have each girl design child chose different colors for their side of the room.

I hope this helps.