edit:Get These Kids Out of My Bed!!!!

You have to train them. Realize this won't happen overnight (npi).

Baby gates for the little ones. Lock the door for the older ones.

Bribe the older ones with a preemptive strike...for every night they stay in their beds and/or every morning they wake up in their own beds, they get something. You can use tally marks. Every tally mark could be worth 5 min extra to stay up late on the next non school night, or extra time watching tv or playing video games.

After they start staying in their beds, start giving them tally marks for every week they don't come in and so on.

Cheese and crackers you have a lot going on.

All I can say is layers.

I think you should start with getting them to fall asleep in their beds. I think that will solve a lot of this because at the moment they have no idea how to fall asleep in their own beds so they come to you or cry.

So sit next to the two year old and pat them, talk to them but tell them they will fall asleep there. Same sort of with the 20 month old but I guess you have to have to stand by the crib.

You can't expect them to self sooth if they haven't even figured out how to fall asleep in their beds.

I think that you need to institute a bedtime routine that doesn't involve the couch or a parent. Figure out a time you want them in bed by - not asleep but IN BED. Then back up about 2 hours from that magic number and start your routine. In our home, it's bath, books, snack, bed. She can keep her light on til I go to bed, but she needs to stay in her room. It's so ingrained now that the cats know when they'll be fed and she will ask for a bath even if she doesn't really need one.

When the 2 yr old scampers to your room, gently take him back to his and put him there. Over and over. He will eventually stay there when he realizes that getting up only means he'll go back.

You let it get here the same way any of us does. My DD used to be up til 11 or 12 but sleep til 9 or 10 and around 18 mo. or so we started really getting firm on the routine and it's gone well. I'm not saying there's not a hiccup here and there, but for example, rather than snuggling DD into my bed, I held her and rocked her in her room, so she felt her room was safe and didn't spend the night in my bed. I also transitioned from holding and/or nursing DD to sleep to sitting in her room (but not interacting with her) til she was tired.

Another reason to try this earlier than the older kids' bedtime is that hopefully the little guys' crying will be done by the time 10 and 9 yr olds go to bed. And you can also buy the older kids fans for white noise (my SD uses a fan at night).

The family bed is not for everybody and you all need some sleep. Good luck.

We used the Ferber method, it worked for us.

Its a shame you missed the recent school holidays. That would have been a window to do some sleep training without worry that the older two would be woken. Cest la vie. If your chief concern is for your older two, schedule a series of sleepovers for them with families you trust.

Before you start sleep training anyone, see if you can arrange for a few nights away. Go to your mom's, a local hotel, use a neighbor's spare bedroom, put up an inflatable bed in your laundry room. Do whatever you need to do to get a few night's rest to help you restore overall, and get ahead of these muscle nerve issues. It will be harder to tackle the toddler sleep arrangements if you aren't fighting fit.

Good luck to you and yours,
F. B.

Sandy is right. You have never taught them to self-soothe.

I'm sorry you are having this problem. However, now's the time to take the bull by the horns and stop this thing.

No more allowing them in your room. Lock your door. You will wake when they try to get in. Have your HUSBAND (you are not healthy enough to do this) go in and put the kids to bed. He should sit in the floor in the middle of the room. The baby may cry himself to sleep, and it's okay. Your husband will be right there and in middle of the room without uttering one single word. No sitting on their beds, to talking, no holding, nothing. Just sitting in the middle of the floor with the lights out and a nightlight on so that they can barely see him. The youngest one will have the hardest time getting to sleep, but it's time and it needs to be done. If they get out of the bed, he gets up and puts them BACK in the bed and then sits back down in the middle of the floor.

The first couple of nights, they will stay awake on purpose to figure out what is going on and cry to go back in your room. Your door should be off limits to them. When they go back to sleep, he can come back to bed.

This will last for many nights, but it is worth it. Once the kids know that they CANNOT come in your room, they will give up trying to come in. Once they are tired and bored of looking at dad sit in the middle of the room, they will stop waking up.

It isn't easy, J.. It will take TIME for this to change. If your husband isn't 100% consistent, he might as well not even try. Don't start what you two won't finish because it will give your kids MORE of an incentive to fight you on this.

Sending you strength.

Dawn

Well, mom, the only person who can get your kids out of your bed is you.

This is the routine they know so changing it will probably be met with resistance, but you have to stick to it.

The little ones should go to sleep in their own beds after story time. Start trying earlier at night to allow for some fussing time. The should be asleep before the older kids go to bed. As for getting up to get in your bed, dad's going to have to be consistant about putting them back in their room.

You might as well start now, because it gets harder as they get older.

Best wishes.

Because you've never taught them to ever self soothe, this will mean some hard work on your part. But the rewards will be LOTS of great nights, no more exhaustion!! Yes you and Dad WILL have to get out of bed and walk them or carry them back time after time. Yes the older children will be disturbed, for a week. But don't make that an excuse-they will survive and it will be temporary. Just prepare for a difficult week or so. Good luck!

Well, for starters, the two youngest should have a much earlier bedtime than the two older ones. The toddlers should be hitting the hay closer to 7:00 pm. The older ones can probably stand to be up until 8:30 (unless they have a super early bus pick up on school mornings).

So, you let them cry (if it comes to that) at bedtime--not necessarily during the middle of the night. There is a big enough gap in your kids, that you NEED to have different bedtimes for the two age groups. Yes, that means more "bedtime work" for you and husband, but that's how it shakes out sometimes. Different kids have different needs.

Jo W. is right on the money that the biggest issue you have to face is that your kids do not know how to fall asleep without using you or dad as their security blanket. They need to learn to fall asleep in their own bed--not on the sofa with either of you, or in your bed or anywhere else--- and not with you IN the bed with them. Otherwise, guess what they will require to fall back asleep if/when they wake up in the middle of the night....

Get that issue resolved first, and then you can work on the middle of the night stuff (which essentially amounts to you walk them back to their rooms each and every time they come to you during the night---with minimal [none if you can do it] eye contact or talking; And you don't carry them, you make them walk).

There are a lot of ways to go about getting them to go to sleep in their own beds. Your 10 and 9 year old shouldn't require much more than you telling them there is a new bedtime routine and here it is. The younger two, there are tons of books about how to approach it, or just search on this site for "how to get toddler to sleep in own bed". In our house, I used the Ferber Method to get my daughter to learn to fall asleep on her own. At 6 months she could fall asleep in her crib, alone, without any crying--and she slept all night. Other people have other favorite methods. Check around for what you are willing to try. And when you are ready, try it... and stick with it long enough to give it a real chance. If you try something new every 3 or 4 days because the first way "wasn't working", then you aren't giving a fair chance to the method involved.

Good luck.

I second the bedtime routine idea. Mine was similar dinner, bath, stories, bed. We often read their story in their room.

BE FIRM!!!

All of your kids are old enough to be put to bed and sleep through the night in their own bed. It may take a few weeks but don't back down.

The nerve and muscle issues may be caused by trying to sleep a scrunched up around children or by having them lay on your arm or leg.

You have to lay them down in their bed and stick to your guns. Look up Supernanny's bedtime techniques.

Let the "baby" cry.

And explore other times and places to have intimacy with your husband outside of the bedroom.