wind down time for a sprited baby nearly toddler

[ktmum]

Hiya all
Ok im looking for ways to introduce a wind down time ie signal for bed.
At the moment my DD has a bath, changes for bed has a bottle and then sits on my lap watching tv until shes either very sleepy or asleep. I want her to go to bed awake but as soon as i take her to the bedroom she starts figiting and wants to play. I would love to read her a story but there a cats chance that she will sit on my lap for more than 5 seconds. If I try to put her down awake she will bounce right back up a yell blue murder and we have a good half hour of rocking pupd etc.
does anyone have any ideas of how to improve my bedtime routine??
Sorry to yabble on
Ailahx

[tylersmommy]

You might try omitting the TV or moving it earlier in the routine, like before the bottle. Our bedtime wind down looked like this...watch a few minutes of Baby Einstein, clean up toys, go upstairs and brush teeth, put on pajamas in darkened room, bottle (when he used to get one), rock and sing to lullaby CD, put in crib. That's it. It takes a lot of repetition for the routine to kick in and start to send sleepy signals, so pick something and stick to it. Same goes with what happens after you put her in the crib. If she screams and won't have any of it, do PD, PU/PD, or pat/shh...whichever works, but don't take her back out of the crib to rock or do anything else. Keep at it...it will click eventually.

Does she fall asleep on her own for naps? What does her naptime routine look like?

[Z and A]

I have a VERY spirited 2.5yr old and I remember those days!  I would eliminate the tv (it is actually very stimulating) and I would also try an earlier bedtime... with my DS, when we missed his VERY narrow sleep window... he would get into that "overtired play harder" mode.

We tightened his routine to be dinner, then right into a long bath where he gets the rest of the play out of him, then jammies, into rocking chair with milk for a few books, then into bed. 

We tried PU/PD with him, but he would never resettle when you picked him up so it acutally made him more hyper.  We found it easier to never pick him up but make sure he knew we were there... we would sing something repetative (twinkle twinkle or something) over and over.  No talking, just singing and offering to pat him or hold his hand if he wanted. Once he was in bed, he did not get to come out and the lights stayed off.

How old is your child?  When DS was old enough to understand what we were saying (over 14mo or so) we would tell him about the routine and let him choose what song we sang while he fell asleep... it could take up to an hour or more for him to fall asleep.   It did get better he is able to settle himself down if we miss the window, it just takes longer.

good luck
Shawna