How do you get 2 kids to bed without duct tape or velcro suits and sheets?

[HotI]

I need an I-device then! 9pm would be a good night here. Eenee, I don't know who is easier these days, neither of them are keen to go to sleep. I do try to go with who I think will drop first, but if it is DD, then DS just gets in to everything.

Sunnylove, what is #2 doing while you are reading stories etc?

[Sunny Love]

Number 2 is with his dad, I totally overlooked that side of your situation! You could read to both of them in DD's bed, and when the story is finished take DS to his room to sleep, and let DD know DS is going to bed too now. She won't want to miss out on anything. I might also quietly read to my DS alone in his bed, and you could follow your own routine with your DS also.

[wysiwyg]

I need an I-device then! 9pm would be a good night here. Eenee, I don't know who is easier these days, neither of them are keen to go to sleep. I do try to go with who I think will drop first, but if it is DD, then DS just gets in to everything.

Sunnylove, what is #2 doing while you are reading stories etc?

No need for an I-device - we used a second hand cassette player (one of those kids Fisher Price ones) for a while - which was great as could finally play alot of the cassettes from my childhood - but DS got hold of a cassette and the tape got pulled!! so now I stick with an old ipod/mp3 player. My sister and I had Walkman's as kids, and I think this has really contributed to my love of audiobooks and radio - and I love that DD now shares that love. Is great for car too.

[Arcadia]

I started putting both to sleep in the one bed. I always do bed time alone, so I do bath then stories all together in my bed, then I lie down between the kids and boob ds while dd cuddles my back. It changed my stress levels hugely at bed time. You could then transfer dd to her own bed if you wanted, but I ended up just doing a family bed.

You have to time the nap times etc so both are tired at the same time, but IMO getting them to bed together was so much less work than entertaining one while getting baby to sleep then sitting for ages while other falls asleep. I cut the settling time in half by combining it.

Now if dd wants to stay up longer with Dh she can but that's only recent and only on the rare nights Dh is home (weekends mainly)

[~Kim~]

I have 3 on my own.
I do whatever is easiest. Often I am flustered as I cannot wait until they are all asleep.
My big girl is reasonably easy. She just goes to bed. Often with a short DVD, audio book or a book, but she knows when she is tired and just goes to sleep. She also has a room away from the other two.
DS has recently become a nightmare. And often I have to resort to the outside threat too. We have a read/ milk. He used to just roll over and go to sleep. Lately he is awake for hours, so often he has fireman sam on repeat on the DVD player. He cannot just roll over and go to sleep. Often he is hungry (because he doesn't eat during the day ). Sometimes if I sit with him he will go to sleep, often it's a long and protracted battle.
The littlest Miss, she goes when she's tired. If that's before the big kids, ace. Otherwise she just potters around until it's her turn or she's too tired. She's a feed to sleep kid though, so often I do it while I sit with DS.
I start the process early with dinner and baths.

[Lenny]

Mine are a little older now, and seem a bit more tired when they first go to bed.

But when they were younger I did find one at a time easier. I'd do the dinner (early, like 5), then play, then tidy up, book, then shower, teeth etc. I would then pick the tired one and we'd all go to his bed and read one or two books. Then the other one would go out of the room (same room never ever worked in this house) and sit in the lounge with an audiobook on their own headphones ($20 from **** smith). They can't walk around much because the headphones and MP3 player restrict their movement a bit. They rarely muck up with them on. No tv at this stage. If I did offer tv, it was always before the bath bit.
Then sit with the tired one until he was almost asleep. Then sit with the other less tired one until the audiobook was over, or start another short book - reward for being quiet whilst I dealt with first child.
Then bed for the second child.
Then pretty much what Snacks said. Lol.

With my older son I used to say to him mummy's going to have a shower now, so I'll come back and check on you and give you water/blanket/dinosaur/whatever in ten minutes after my shower. He seemed to go with this a lot and then sometimes he'd fall asleep and sometimes not, but at least he'd been calm for the previous 10 minutes or so.

I kinda followed this routine when DH was home too. Then they knew that they couldn't get me to give them treats or special treatment when I was on my own.

Bear in mind, this didn't always work. Nothing is ever fool-proof. But it was always what I tried to do.