Thank you so much for checking in, we've been away, followed by MORE sickness and I completely missed your reply! All better now though thanks. I hope yours are all well now too.
Well we have had some improvement but it's a bit hit and miss. Certainly the feed before bath works. And the earlier bedtime (3 hours after nap or 6pm). But we find she either goes down without a peep and then wakes hysterical after 40 mins so we have to go in and calm her then stay with her until she's asleep. Or she's hysterical right off the bat, we stay with her and once she's down she doesn't wake again. It's very rare she'll go down easily and stay down. Occasionally she will resettle herself but not often and as it's quite elevated screaming, we are hesitant to leave her for long.
She is cutting her first tooth this week but I feel like we've been dealing with this too long for teething to be the cause. When she's hysterical, she's clearly exhausted - the second you pick her up, her eyes close but she starts screaming again the second you put her down. Pick up/Put Down just seems to make it worse, so a few times lately we've had to get her to sleep in our arms. The last two nights I've been able to calm her in the cot by patting her back, but even that feels like a step backwards when we know she can do it herself! I'm now just hoping that as she is able to put herself to sleep consistently for naps, that she'll just eventually learn to do it for bedtime as well. But if you can think of anything else I should be doing please let me know.
I should add that we aren't getting consistent naps either - generally one long and one short (40 mins) each day and it switches which is the longer one. I think you said it should be more consistent with the longer A time but I'm not too worried unless you think this is wrapped up with her bedtime issues. Thanks again for your help x