20 months old hyperactive before sleeping

[user1471523870]

I really don't know what to do and it is becoming a problem.
My little boy has always been very active, he couldn't stop kicking me even from inside the womb!
He's now 20 months, walks/runs/clims/goes on tricke/etc, great fine and gross motor skills, slight delay in communication (or not, not sure there, he can say few words, repeat some others, def understands simple sentences 'get your shoes, bring me my glasses, let's go to the garden, do you want a banana' etc, however even if he 'talks' we don't understand what he says! He will be bi-lingual as English is not the language we talk at home, and he goes to nursery full time, so that might be the reason).
He's always been a decent sleeper, going to bed around 7pm and getting up at around 7am, waking normally one time during the night. Bedtime routine in place since very very small: bath, pijamas, story, always in his room etc. We don't feed him any sugar in the evening.

However, over the last few weeks falling asleep has been hard work. Very hard work.
He just doesn't stop moving around. No matter how many stories we read he wants to play with the pillows, goes up and down from his bed, plays with our hair/face/hands/clothes and generally speaking can't stay still for 2 seconds! He's constantly kicking, rolling, getting up and down, doing something.
It takes HOURS until eventually he gives in and falls asleep. As a result of that we have no evenings any more. At the beginning the person who was not with him would cook dinner and wait for the other to come down, however as it took so long we moved to have dinner first and then one of us take him upstairs.
We even tried to keep him with us for the evening in the last few days as it's so hot anyway, but once we are upstairs it still takes one hour or two even if it's 10 or 11pm!!!
Is this normal? Do your toddlers move constantly? Any suggestion?

I think they just get a fresh hit of free will at this age and it's really hard and can be a system shock. My LO was an angel sleeping til about 18MO then all hell broke loose Depending on how yoi actually want to deal with it I would just be consistent and decide what you're going to allow and stick to it. Eg we do stay with our's but bedtime is at a consistent time. She has a bit of wind down time with some books and milk and then she has a bath, a bit of gentle singing time and talking to her about her day whilst we get pjs on and things and then it's exactly stories, lights off and that's it. We do stay with her then until she's properly asleep otherwise she gets upset but if she gets out of bed (rarely does now, was a little horror to begin with) we tell her once that it's bedtime and otherwise there's no communication although I will sit and sing songs to help her sleep and put my hand on her back if she wants it. If she messes about too much when I'm trying to have stories I tell her calmly that we can just turn the lights off and go straight to sleep if she's too tired to listen to stories. I've literally only had to actually put the stories away a couple of times as she gets it and sits and listens. I think it is just about accepting that he is only a baby and may need some help sleeping but being consistent with whatever you do. Good luck. It gets better and tbh if you're not too hard and stressful on them it gets better by itself. My 2YO used to be in our bed without fail every night at some point but for a few weeks in a row now she's mostly slept right into the morning and we've had to go get her. We didn't push this at all it just happened when she was ready. The only other thing you might want to think about is nap time. I wouldn't cut it completely as he will get over tired but you could try reducing it to half an hour/an hour. I wouldn't play too much with the routine though as he will end up confused and won't know what's expected of him xx

Exactly 2 stories at bedtime that was meant to say*

Thank you, very good advice!
He's already on one nap only and both at nursery and at home we are strict about napping early.
I will stick to the routine and see if this is a phase maybe. Perhaps the longer days and the heat play a role (fingers crossed ).