Help with Bedtime in a Shared Room!

My only advice is to stop the party before bedtime. they are both old enough to understand the rules. give them new rules. something like this

1 drink of water
1 song
1 story
night time kisses
go to sleep
if they get up and out again they get a gate up or a door closed. and stick to it. they have turned it into a game and your loosing. we had to do this with our boys. they were 15 months apart. you need to work the schedule around so that they both have the same one. give your daughter a shorter nap or earlier nap. wake her up when your son gets up. it may be cranky days for a bit but if you get them up together they will start falling asleep together. or you will have 3 bedtimes, 3 wake up times and no sleep for yourself. if you put them down and they scream so be it. it won't last long.

I suggest that you're on the right track. It just takes time to get a new routine to work. It might help to divide the difference in bed time. Put them both to bed at 8:00 instead of 7:30 and 8:30.

For the girl, I'd immediately and consistently put her back to bed each time she comes out of the room. Remain calm and not fun. No conversation. No potty. No drink of water. It's immediately back to bed! She will eventually learn. When Super Nanny has done this on the air it's taken less than a week. Super Nanny had the parent stay in the room with the toddler, sitting on the floor next to the bed. That way the going back to bed was immediate. I've also seen the parent sit in the hall. Perhaps start in the bedroom and once compliance is mostly met, hang out in the hall to check it.

You might give her a sippy cup of water to take to bed with her. This worked for my grandchildren. Eliminated one excuse and gave them a diversion that kept them in bed.

The idea of giving her a shorter nap may also help.

I was going to suggest everything Marda and Sherry said, with an emphasis on a baby gate to prevent them from coming out of the room. Sounds like they think bedtime is a game, but it's one you won't have the time or energy to play in about 3 weeks.

With the new baby coming you really need to simplify your life by putting them both down at the same time, especially if you and daddy want time alone. Put them both to bed at 8 pm, after their bedtime routine. I keep things fairly quiet and my voice soft, and we do a bath, rub down with nighttime lotion to relax him, pj's, teeth brushing, 2 books (singing hypes him up), potty, kisses, lights out, door closed. He gets to keep a sippy cup of water with him, and I don't let him get up to potty as he was using it as a ploy to get out of his room.

After this point all talking is in a whisper, our "time to sleep" voice. If he fusses and calls out to me i sometimes go back in after a few minutes, keeping the lights off, give him a hug and more kisses, then tuck him in and leave. If he fusses anymore I'll wait a few minutes then go to the door, not in the room, and tell him I love him and it's time to sleep. Sometimes he cries a bit, but if i would go in or stay with him until he was asleep he'd keep it up and would stay up until 10 or later...uh huh.

I read last week about a mom who camped out in front of her child's room, so when she got up and opened the door she saw mom, who pointed to the bed without saying a word and after a few nights her daughter got the picture. You or dad could sit a chair there and do it.

Get both of them up at the same time in the morning, and make any adjustments you need to your daughter's nap, timewise or the length of it. Hopefully you can get this situated before your new baby arrives, and congrats! : )

We are about to try this ourselves, so I do not have experience exactly. I would say based on how we transitioned my older son that it might be worth it to sit in the room until she falls asleep, for now. I suspect that it might take a few nights of you sitting there, but it won't be long before it becomes unnecessary.

We sat with our son until he fell asleep. Then we began sitting for a bit and leaving with an excuse (I need to load the dishwasher) and a promise to return. We always returned and sat with him until he fell asleep. We then gradually increased the time we were gone but always came back. It wasn't long before he was asleep when we got back. He now has no trouble (well, once in awhile) falling asleep on his own. It's kisses, goodnight and I leave.

Just a thought. Hopefully it will work for me as well.

the only thing i can add to your growing toolbox of ideas is something we do and has worked relatively well, but does take 1 - 1 1/2 hr. we start by doing bedtime routine with both kids (1 1/2 & 3 yr.) - pajamas, stories, songs. then i continue putting the younger one to sleep (nursing, more songs, rocking) while my husband continues with our 3 yr. old (teeth brushing, quite cleaning up around house, a quite activity like puzzles or blocks with light off/dim). the younger one goes to sleep about 7 and by the time the older one comes back into the room she will well enough asleep to not be disturbed. the older one then gets another book (longer) read very quietly and then off to sleep about 8.

now of course it doesn't work perfectly every night and the older one likes to get up and go to the bathroom after we leave, but we just put him back and the younger one rarely wakes up. room sharing isn't always easy, but it is possible. good luck!

When my kids have been in that transition stage with naps I had similar problems. What worked for us was me keeping her nap shortened. I know you probably don't want to cut her nap out yet, but try making sure she doesn't sleep more than 90 minutes and see how that affects bedtime. Also, we had a lot of success with doing the "silent return" to bed. No eye contact, no talking, nothing. When she gets out of bed just take her back, put her in bed, and leave. You will probably spend a long time doing it over and over the first night, but with my two oldest it only took three nights and they stayed in bed. (It took two hours the first night with one kid.)

Good luck!

Keep them separate if you can.
Do you have to combine them?
It seems like oil and water.
And with those basic elements, you can't change their basic components.
And at their ages, they are not and cannot be, each others 'chaperone' to fall asleep or in order to fall asleep. YOU will still need to do that. Kids at these ages... do.not.have., fully developed "Impulse-Control" yet either.
It is not all neat and calm and easy putting kids to bed at these ages. Kids at these ages... NEED assistance, to go to bed. Not just putting them in their rooms and then hoping they fall asleep on their own or to stay still as statues. It is not, possible. You do need to... assist them. And if you don't want to, I would separate them.
This is not working out.

Your 3 year old is a good sleeper. BUT now with the younger sibling... he is getting LACK of sleep.
Poor thing.

I shared a room with a sibling as a child.
I HATED it.
It was, NEVER ever.... something that worked out. My sibling, was a controlling bossy obnoxious manipulative mean sibling... that just always tried to irk me major. Then if I told my parents she would blame me.

We had the same issue with same aged children and genders. In our case it was the 3 1/2 year old boy that kept coming out and his 2 year old sister would be sound asleep. We talked to a pediatrician and she recommended a baby gate or lock on the door. I was horrified. After a few more unsuccesful attempts of a peaceful bedtime routine we decided to modify our peds suggestion. We informed the kids that there was a new rule. The door would be closed after we tuck them in and we would open it again when the parents went to bed. Once the door is closed it is quiet time. We then placed one of those door knob covers on the inside of their room. We always make them go potty right before we go into their room to read books and we remind them that they need to get all of the pee out because we won't be coming back. We have their room with black out curtains and an air purifier to drown out the rest of the household noises. After we read 2 books in the dark (each of them pick one and take turns holding the flashlight to read their book, we tuck them in, sing 2 songs (each picks one) then we ask them if they need a big hug and then we say good night and close the door. The first night, there were many tears. After that they went right to sleep. After a month of this, there have been a few times where they both get up and start playing but we just act like we don't hear them and eventually they go back to bed and to sleep. We used to spend up to 45 minutes some days in their room waiting for them to go to sleep. They go to sleep much faster w/o a parent in the room.