It is hard, and to some extent it is a matter of holding yourself to what you know is good for you with sleep schedule. There are some things that you can do. Light and dark are a much more significant factor than they get credit for. Light (particularly the blue part of the spectrum) is the signal to your brain to make and release the chemicals that wake you up. So, you need to get exposure to bright light early in the morning. Natural daylight is the real thing. You can make it a point to get outside every day for at least 20 minutes before 10 a.m. It is harder in the winter when it is cold, and seems like if it is stormy or cloudy it isn't light enough anyway, but the light is there (unless you are way up north), and it does make it through the clouds. Or you can get a bright light (the kind made for SAD) that you can use indoors. Bipolar disorder is affected by light and sleep cycle too, but I don't think that we think about it as much. And everybody has a circadian rhythm, some on a schedule that is working better for them than others. I don't know how anyone can have kids and not have their circadian rhythm disturbed.

Dark is as important as light, maybe even more so if you have bipolar disorder. Dark is the signal to your brain to make melatonin, the chemical that helps you relax and sleep. If you are not going to bed before midnight, you are not making enough melatonin. Light exposure in the late evening interferes with melatonin production. Yellow light is okay, so you can use a lamp or fixture with a yellow light bulb if you need to do something at night. One of the best things that you can do to regulate bipolar disorder is to eliminate exposure to blue spectrum light after 10 p.m. Even if you are manic and not sleeping, make sure to get your dark time (or even start it at 8 p.m.) because that will restore your balance in the way that it is off at that time. I'm sure that it isn't easy, but if you can do it, it will work.

I have alarms to remind me when it is bedtime. You can also use an alarm to limit naps to no more than 15-20 minutes (if you don't go into REM sleep, the nap is much less likely to interfere with sleep at night). It isn't easy, but you can build routines and discipline yourself to follow your routines. Involve the kids. Explain that it is something you need to do so that you can be happy, feel better, be a good mom, ..., and it is good for them also. You can have little variations and exceptions, but the more you stick to a routine even on weekends or when you have less structured days, the better it will work. I don't have bipolar disorder, but I do have SAD, and I'm not good at following through with this stuff either, but I know that I feel better when I do.

If you want to work on routines, Flylady.net is really helpful. (Helps with organizing and cleaning up, but the best thing I learned from her was how to set up routines for myself to do the things that I know I need to do. You have to start simple, with maybe three things you do before bedtime and three things that you do in the morning, and build on it slowly when you have the routines established. If you try to change everything all at once you will not keep it up.)