Question
I have a 4.5yr son and 2.5yr daughter who just this past week has become roommates so we can prepare the nursery for baby #3, due in 4 months. The first few nights bedtime, between 8-9p, was smooth and everyone went to sleep. However, we have come across an issue, if either of the kids aren’t 100% tired when we say goodnight and depart they will decide to make enough noise to keep the other one awake and convince each other it’s time to play. Prior to the two kids becoming roommates our son has had the freedom if he wasn’t tired he could play quietly in his room and would then go to sleep on his own which was always prior to 10p; we allowed this as he would wake in the morning on his own at the same time 7a and be a happy camper all day. Our daughter would sooth herself to sleep usually within 20min of our goodbyes. The nights when it has become a clear indication its ‘playtime’ you can clearly see our daughter or both kids are really tired. We allowed it one night to see what would happen and it wasn’t until midnight before the kids fell asleep and the next morning both kids were cranky as could be. Our current solution is one of us sits in the room after we have said our goodbyes, we don’t say a word nor interact with either kid until our daughter falls asleep; she falls asleep the fastest; and then we depart. Is there a better way to handle this? We don’t want to have to sit in their room indefinitely to make them go to sleep especially with baby #3 coming along. We also don’t want to be creating a habit that they need either parent in the room to sleep since prior to this both have been fully capably of doing it without us.
