Sleep for My Two Year Old!

I have several good friends who have dealt with the early wake-ups (I have been blessed with late sleepers myself). One family put a small lamp in the closet plugged into a timer (one of those that plugs into the outlet, the you plug the lamp into the timer) and mostly closed the closet door. They set the timer to 6 am and told their son that it was not time to be awake until the light went on ("be awake" can mean whatever - you have to stay in bed, you have to be quiet, whatever parameters you need.) It was a small enough light that IF he happened to sleep past 6 it would not wake him up, but was a visual cue for him that he could check for an understand. Another family set a clock radio with soft music for 6 am - if the music was playing, it was time to wake up. If the music wasn't playing, it was still time for sleep. Another friend taught her daughter what "6:00" looks like on the digital clock (her daughter was almost 3) and it wasn't time to be awake until there was a "6" on the clock. All of these things worked very well with a week or so of adjustment.

I wish I had advice on the middle of the night wake-ups, but my 18 month old is also up 2-3 times a night, so I'm as lost as you on that one. Who knows, maybe the "not time to be awake" cue (music or light or whatever) will help with that, too!

Good luck!

I would suggest when he wakes up in the middle of the night, tell him you will rock him for a few minutes (the 1st time) then you'll sit in his room while he lays in his bed. If he fusses, ask questions to derail "Do you want to be covered up or no covers?" When you start to leave the room if he fusses, ask "Do you want the door open or closed?" Each subsequent time, tell him that you will sit by him and rub his back. Ask him which song you want him to sing. Maybe getting him to stay in his bed when he wakes up will help to train him to fall back asleep.

As far as getting up at 5, we went through this with my daughter for about a week. I know you don't want to reward him but I'd give him two options - lay in bed with you and no noise or go into his room and play using only a quiet voice. Explain that if he's loud, you are going to have to turn the lights off and he'll have to lay in his bed.

As far as tuning noises out, I suggest a fan or white noise machine for both kid's rooms that way they don't wake up if they hear you or each other. Or could you shut the older son's door?

Do you have a portable DVD player? Tell you son he can sit in your bed (or his) and watch a DVD with headphones on as long as he's quiet.

Your young sleeper sounds like he's got the same routine as my son! We did however finally get rid of the night-time wake ups! (he still gets up at 5am though and there;s nothing calm about it, we are awake awake at 5am and it is play time and breakfast and basically a regular morning just at 5am).
As for the sleeping through the night, he used to be awake every 2hrs and be up and loud and playing for 30+minutes so by morning I would have gotten no sleep since by the time I would fall back asleep he would be awake again. So we talked to our pediatrician. She suggested the only way to go about getting him sleeping through the night is to just not go in. It took a couple weeks of night-time tantrums but now he sleeps through the night perfectly! Not a peep! It was hard though, our doctor said you don't go in no matter what, if he cries for 4 hours you don't go in, otherwise he learns he cries for 4 hrs and then gets someone to come in. So if you try this you have to be 100% committed to never going into his room. I got no sleep during this time and was up when he was just not in his room, but his crying almost made me cry it was really hard not going in his room! And my husband had to sleep in the basement because it drives him up the wall to hear our son scream. But we got through it and it is really nice to have him sleeping through the night!

We just began to use a humidifier/white noise machine for my son who is also a light sleeper (in anticipation of our new baby) and it seems to muffle out the other noises and people in the house while he sleeps. Maybe try one in your Kindergartner's room to see if it helps him.
Have you tried putting up room darkening curtains in your little ones room? It might help block out the sun/light and allow him to naturally fall back to sleep - I know we use them and it helps me as I wake up and can't fall back to sleep if it is the tiniest bit of light.
As for his sleeping through the night - it's probably not helping that he is being comforted by you (or husband) every time he wakes up because he can't learn to put himself back to sleep and by now he is old enough to know that if he is up/crying/loud he'll get your attention! I agree with the previous poster about comforting him in his bed - don't take him out if it can be helped. I have a friend who used to set a "timer" that vibrated after a certain amount of minutes and she would leave her son to go to sleep by himself - she did this every time and after a while she set the timer for shorter periods and eventually he slept through the night. There is no quick fix for it as he is older and more set in his patterns - but with consistency and patience he'll figure it out! Good luck!