Hi, I have an almost 3.5yr old son and boy/girl twins who will be 2 in February and a 4th baby due at the end of Feb. My boys share a room instead of the twins, as my daughter generally goes to sleep earlier and sleeps later so I don't want the boys disturbing her. My 3 yr old dropped his nap very early, I think around 18mths or so, he was 17mths when the twins were born and did not seem to need a nap, so it was just easier to skip it and put all 3 kids to bed by 7pm. The boys started sharing a room when my younger son was 8mths or so, and he transitioned from a cot to a bed early at around 15mths as he thrashes around in his sleep a lot, so just seemed to need more space. Until recently we never had any issues, both boys would go down at 7pm chat for a few minutes then sleep the whole night, with my younger son usually waking up first between 6-6.30pm. However, all of a sudden when we put them to bed now they jump around the room, play, chat, swap beds and pretty much have a grand old time until they pass out, sometimes 1-1.5hrs later at around 8.30pm. We have an old house with doors with high handles, so we have always shut their bedroom doors, so they don't bang on the door or cry or anything like that, and they aren't coming out and disturbing us. The problem is, when they do this they still wake up at 6.30am so my 3yr old is quite sleep deprived having such a short night, my 2yr old will still nap for 2hrs in the day if we want him to, so catches up on his sleep that way. We have started experimenting by changing my 2yr olds nap schedule and even dropped it somedays to see if it makes a difference, for example last night we only let him nap for 20mins in the car, we put both boys down at 6.45 and after some mucking about they were asleep by 7.30pm and woke up at 7am, after sleeping all the way through. Do you think this is the way to go, and drop my 2yr olds nap. It is early I know, but he has done everything earlier and with a 4th baby on the way, we really want to keep the 7pm bedtime for the kids, so we get some time to ourselves as well. What do y'all think?
