My nearly two year old DD is fighting the fight of a lifetime every time I put her down to sleep. And, sadly, she is winning.....
Everything is fine during our pre-sleep routine of milk and stories, but as soon as she goes in to the cot it's Jumping! or Spining! or Kicking! Initially, I dealt with this by telling her that I would come back when she was ready to go to sleep and leaving the room, coming back periodically to see if she was ready to go to sleep. This didn't have much effect. Then, I failed to deal with it by completely losing it and yelling. Honestly, this worked a bit better, but really it's not the way I want to go.
She has never been a good sleeper, and currently she only sleeps for 9 hours at night (8-5, which is a great improvement on her 4 o'clock wake ups). I'm any still convinced that she needs some daytime sleep as she is showing all the signs of tiredness and the days when I don't manage to get her to sleep are not worth living.
Bedtime is just about bearable but at naptime it can take her in excess of a hour to go to sleep. (As I write this she has been in her cot not sleeping for an hour and 45 minutes)
This has been going on over a month now and I have no idea what to do. Help?