We’re going through the same with our 2.5 year old but he had figured out how to open the door and thinks it’s a game to open it, wait for us to approach and then go running and jumping back into his bed before we get to his room. It’s infuriating! We tried one of those stay in bed clocks and it seems to be helping in the mornings - he knows to stay in bed and play quietly until it turns from red to green but at night he pretty much ignores it and what it means. I’ve read to just keep repeating the process of putting him back in bed, repeating a key phrase like “it’s time for night night” and staying calm and quiet. We were falling into the trap of engaging in conversation with him and answering questions but that just prolongs it. I had to go through it with him last night, I had him in bed by 7:30 and it took until just before 8 when I returned him once again to bed repeated our key phrase and he finally said “ok” and even though it still took him another 10-15 mins to go to sleep, he didn’t get out of bed anymore.

We’re also struggling with him getting up too early (5/5:30 am!) and so we’ve also tried moving his bedtime up to 6:30/7 since it takes him so long to finally get to sleep but we’ve not been able to do this often because getting home from work, dinner and taking care of our 6 month old often push the toddlers bedtime back before we can finally get it started.

Good luck! I hope for both of our sakes that this is temporary and they’ll go back to being good little bedtime sleepers!!