Getting toddler dry and dressed after bath is like trying to squeeze bucking bronco into a leotard - help!

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DS (2.5) likes to squirm, thrash his legs, run away, flop, lie face down on floor, twist etc as soon as I get him out of the bath...

How do other parents manage to get their toddlers properly dry and in their pyjamas in under 30 mins and without feeling knackered from battling with what feels like a rampaging boar???

We had the drying issue with my eldest if we needed to dry her rather than let her dry sitting in a towel. However we've turned it into a game (offer her pat pat pat, rubadubdub or flappy flappy flap so she chooses how she gets dried. All ways make her laugh as we're super silly with it and it's her favourite bit now). Our rules are dried, dressed and tidy (the toys) before CBeebies bedtime hour is on so that focuses her mind!

Wrap in a towelling dressing gown. Or use a hooded towel like the ones meant for swimming.
Unless you are an Eskimo without an igloo I very much doubt pneumonia is even a possibility. (My MIL gave me all kinds of grief for not drying the hair of the baby at bedtime. He was a baby. He had a few strands!)

A hooded dressing gown made of that towelling material. Put that on, wrap the child up, then into a pull-up if they're not potty trained. Then have a nice cup of warm milk or hot chocolate or something and some supper before bed.

We have 2 techniques- the race ie can DD get dressed before DH comes down stairs (he walks very slowly) or the other thing that works is getting DD to pick a face to do when her head pops out her top- it's always a beaming smile 'happy face' and then she follows this up with dance bum when she has trousers on and does a dance for us shouting 'dance bum'. I'll miss this when she's older I'm sure.

Find pull ups much easier than a nappy to wrestle on at night however they do tend to leak more!

I'm glad I'm not alone with the baby wrestles
I keep bathroom shut, pat dry while his trying to get away, use the pant nappies and shove pj's on best I can then sing a song only sing just before bed so when open the bathroom door he races to the bed & lays down - can still take ages to go off but anyway

I've been lassoing the kid's head with the pyjama top, then cramming his legs into the trousers while he's still blindfolded by the top. By the time he gets his head out of the head hole to see where he's going, his knees are tied together by the trousers.

Oh we've also tried a two parent operatic rendition of the imperial march from Star Wars whilst draping the towel over him like a Sith robe.

That worked quite well. 🤔

Our house isn't cold (even if it's -35 out it's toasty inside) so it's not an issue if he's not fully dry.
The very idea of him sitting still long enough to dry between his toes...

The being cold/catching pneumonia thing is definitely generational! I suspect houses were colder in the 1950s! If I had a pound for every time my mother or MIL said 'doesn't DS need a jacket'? I'd be very rich.

Distraction with a toy is my main tactic but it only works 50% of the time.

For the really horrible nights in our house it is a 2 person job (one to hold down, the other to put the nappy on). Oddly it is just nappies our DS has an issue with (since birth, sigh...), he is fine with putting the clothes on afterwards.

I put a hooded towel poncho thing on ds2 and then let him play/dry off while I get ds1 out.