Story for big kids in one of their rooms. 1 year old (my baby!!!) potters around and looks at their stuff while I read the story. Then the big kids go to their own rooms. I usually leave them with pens and notebooks and they draw until they go to sleep. Then I am free to deal with the baby.

It took a long time to be able to leave DS to go to sleep by himself (4 years). In the end we used old fashioned bribery. DH told him if he went to sleep by himself for three nights he could choose any toy he wanted lol. It worked. He went through patches of protesting but we never gave in and he is great now. DD1 was much younger, we were away for Christmas (so 2y 4m) and was sharing a room with DS. I had to go to the toilet and said I would be back in a couple of minutes but they were chatting away happily so I didn't go back and by the time we got home she was used to going to sleep alone.

For a while there we couldn't see it ever happening, and then it did.