Bedtime!

What does the hour before your out your littles down for bed look like? I know having a routine and some “wind down” time before bed is incredibly important, but I feel like ours isn’t working anymore. Before we’d always do bottle, pajamas, story, affirmations (even though he can’t say them with us we still tell him every night), and then bed time. (Sleep sack, white noise, binky) but now it seems like bedtime is a struggle again. He doesn’t make it through a story without wanting to go play again.

We do baths before everything on the nights he gets a bath but that’s only twice a week per his pediatricians recommendation due to skin issues.

Any advice for what we can do to help wind down more now that he’s older and just wants to play? I’ve dimmed the lights an hour before bed but that some isn’t helping.

We also have tried 3-4 hour wake windows, and some days he goes even longer. No matter how tired he is he just wants to play before bed.