2 & 1/2 year old son wont stay in bed at bedtime
Can anybody please give me any ideas or suggestions as to what we can do................. 
We have a 2 and a half year old boy (our youngest of two boys).
He sleeps in a toddler bed but constantly gets up out of bed EVERY night before going to sleep - many times. We have now had to set the port-a-cot up in his room and we put him in there if he gets up again after a warning.
I really want to put him in a standard size bed soon to get him further away from the floor with winter coming up but we are at out wits end on how to get him to stay in bed and to learn that bed means bed.
Then during the night, every night, we also wake up to both of our boys - ages 2&4 in bed with us. We don't wake up to them coming in, only once they are in. Then we put them back into their beds.
I have not had a full nights sleep in over 4&a half years!! 
Please, any advise/help would be great!! Thank you!
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2 Answers
When my son, now 11, wouldn't stay in bed we put a baby gate in the doorway. That way he couldn't get out of his room. After a few nights of wondering his room, he was too tired at bedtime to get up.
I had the same problem. It started because we would lay withour daughter until she fell asleep. We did the baby gate thing too. I would give her the chance to stay in the bed and if she didn't I would put the gate up. We tried many things to keep her in her bog girl bed. Star charts worked for a while. At first I would tell her she would get a prize after getting 5 stars, but it wasn't working. Then I took it down to 3 stars and it worked much better. The prizes were rarely material things. It was usually a trip to the beach or something like that. Eventually that wasn't keeping her in bed anymore. I tried music to help relax her, stories on CD. None of that worked. She will be 4 soon and what has helped is "reading time." After I read her a story and kiss her goodnight a allow her a certain amount of time to lay in bed and look at books. I leave the hall light on but not her bedroom light. If she is good I will go in there every once in a while to see her. If she gets out of bed she starts loosing privledges like reading time. She still gets out of bed at least once or twice a night, but I can handle that.