I have 3DC, age 7, 4, 16 months. Before the baby came along the two boys were a dream to get down (stories together and asleep by 7.30 latest)
DD came along and made bedtime all a bit more hectic, she's a dreadful sleeper and bedtime has been tricky with her. As a result the boys don't get proper attention at bedtime and really we're just winging it. It changes all the time but at the moment I feed her while DH reads to the 4 year old and the 7 year old reads to himself. Then we swap and he puts the baby down while I read to the 7 yr old. Problem is we are always running late and 50% of the time the older one either doesn't get read to or we keep them up later and they don't have lights out til 8ish. Which is actually ok for DS2, despite being younger he sleeps later in the morning and doesn't struggle so much with overtiredness.
DS1 is the problem. He's 7, he loves being read to and he loves reading himself, but I worry he's losing the reading bug slowly because we don't have continuity at bedtime. I'm reading him the second harry potter and sometimes we go 3-4 days without having time to read together. If I keep him up later on his own, he is just too tired to be on form for school (juniors has come as a bit of a shock, he's exhausted by it). We tried the odd night letting him stay up and we'd do the baby and DS2 as normal upstairs, then come down and read to DS1 on the sofa til 8-8.30ish then he'd creep into their shared room. But regardless of what time he goes to bed he cannot stop waking up between 5.45-6.15. He is good at staying quiet until 6.30 when he is allowed to sneak out without waking his brother and find somewhere quiet to read until 7am. which he is fine with. But he's exhausted. I need to find a way of making him sleep later so that he can stay up a little later and have some time to read. Plus I feel at age 7 he deserves a bit of a privilege in terms of a later bedtime. It just doesnt work.
As you can tell I'm getting myself a bit worked up about all of this. It doesn't help that I'm only getting a couple of hours sleep myself with DD up all night.
I guess I need to get bedtime moving a bit earlier. But with dinner at 5.30, bath at 6 and DD feeding by 6.45 I don't see how I can do that. I already feel like I spend that hour barking orders at people and it feels like such a military operation.
Argh! I guess after all that waffle what I need is a way to make DS sleep later (and the clock change is going to make that even worse!)