DS is now 13 months but I can share what we did when he was your lo's age. DS is also spirited and very energetic so it took a while to find something that would wind him down enough that he could keep still through! About 10 min before it was time to go down for a nap we picked him up and walked around the house very quietly, either talking or singing softly to him. We did a lap or two of the downstairs s-l-o-w-l-y and then the same upstairs. Then we went into his room, said good bye to mr. sun as we closed the blinds and tucked him into bed. If he was in a transition time to needing more A time, we would watch very closely for him to start showing his beginning sleepy signs and then start the wind down. At about 7 months, I incorporated 5-10 min of a Baby Einstein video to the beginning of wind down just to get him to stop moving (he was sitting and starting to creep around by then) so I would sit him on my lap to watch which would start to relax him and then did the same walking around wind down to have a breather after the gentle stimulation fo the BE videos. Some I have talked to have found BE very stimulating but those who have had spirited los have found it to be calming because it gets them to stop moving. We changed wind down at about 9-10 months by keeping the BE video but bumping it up to about 15 min and eliminating the walking around. Instead, we spent a few minutes in his room before bed, sitting in the rocking chair and looking at a book, etc.
HTH!
