To wonder how I manage this?

[booklover164]

DS1 (2.5) has bath with DH then I put him to bed at roughly 7.45.
DS2 ( 5 months) has been staying up with us and then goes to bed with me at about 9.30 as we currently co sleep.
However THIS NEEDS TO CHANGE! DS2 is overtired and cranky at this point so he needs to go to bed earlier.

My question is how do we manage this? How do I put the baby to bed earlier? Do I have to go to bed earlier or is there a way around this?

So not to drip feed: DH used to put DS1 to bed but it wound him up and we found it better when I did it. DS2 has had reflux although a little better now but is super clingy to me.

Would really appreciate any help on this. Thank you!

Do you bed share or have a sidecar crib?

I used to lie down with DC until they were asleep and then go downstairs. You just need to stagger the bedtimes sufficiently. I used to put DC1 to bed, whilst feeding DC2, by the time DC1 was asleep/ ready for me to leave DC2 was getting sleepy.

Alternatively you could give DC2 to DH whilst you pop DC1 to bed and he can get DC2 ready for bed, then you feed to sleep (if that's what you do).

I had similar to this with my 2DC (18 month age gap) and the baby would sleep 11pm to 11am (waking for milk) as the baby was just too nosy to sleep and I didn’t want to put them in their own room before 6 months. I “solved” the issue by going to bed with the baby early for about a month to reset their body clock, then getting a small cot in the toddlers room for the baby to go down in. The routine now is story then milk for the baby, baby goes into small cot in toddlers room, story then milk for the toddler, there’s usually around 45 minutes between them falling asleep and I do sometimes have to pick the baby back up, but the month of early nights for me was worth it as I now get a couple of hours to myself to clean each evening.