Bedtime stalling 2 year old

[Freckles1981]

Hi
My 2yr3mo old has started stalling at bedtime, and it feels like it's all becoming a bit of a battle. We can usually get him upstairs, bathed and dressed okay, but then he starts messing around with wanting the lights on, then off, and so on. Then he'll play around drinking his milk, getting on and off his chair repeatedly, wanting us to sit in different places, then wanting me, then my other half. It's draining and taking so long. We've tried being firm (he screams), and giving him options on where to sit, but he doesn't listen. We've also reduced his milk so that it doesn't take so long, as he won't go in his cot until it's gone. Any ideas on what else we can try?

Once he is in his cot, he's asleep within 10 minutes. He routine looks like this:

Wakes between 6.15 / 6.45
Nap between 12 & 2 (we don't let him sleep past 2, or for longer than 2 hours)
Bedtime routine starts at 6.20 (we've moved it earlier to compensate for the times it's taking)
Asleep around 7/7.10 (7.30 on bad night)

Thanks

[Haribo2012]

Hi, do you think he's possibly a bit UT when your heading up to bed? 13 hour days are pretty common at this age so he might need a shorter wind down at say 7pm with less faffing from him?

Does he have milk after his bath if he has one?

[Buntybear]

Yes have to agree with Zoe. If he is dictating what time he wants to sleep and you want a shortened wind down I would work back from his new sleep time TBH and go upstairs later!

[Conniesmummy]

I'm in a similar situation with my lg abd asked for advice recently. We now work around a 13 hour day, provided we've had a decent nap, ie, over an hour. I try not to let her nap past 2 if I can help it, but can't control daycare and grandparent!  My mum let her sleep 2 hours today, until 2:30! Consequently bedtime ended up later as she wasn't ready!
I can see my little one dropping naps quite early, her cousin did, maybe a family thing.

[Katet]

Is he with you during the day or are you at work, often it can be the need to get their "Mummy time" in too that is a factor, if the day is quite rushed from when they get home until bed it can be quite simply they feel the need for a bit more time with the people they love

Or it maybe that its time that he sees as "quality time" where he knows he gets 100% attention & so works on getting what he "needs" at that time of the day. Children at preschool & younger aren't doing it to annoy us, they simply have a basic need to fulfill their "needs" & will keep working at it.